LAHORE, Jan 20: The Punjab Health Department has ordered immediate vacation of the offices of the Government Public Analyst besides handing over new hostel building of the Institute of Public Health to the proposed Services Institute of Medical Sciences for its hostel accommodation.

A notification regarding the establishment of the SIMS is yet to be issued, it is learnt.

The order issued by health secretary Hasan Waseem Afzal is silent about the re-location of the GPA offices and the accommodation of IPH students already over-crowded in its old hostel building.

The order simply says that the hostel building occupied by the IPH and the GPA offices should be accommodated in the buildings of the respective institutes.

The officials of the Directorate-General of Health Services, Punjab, the office controlling the GPA, however, expressed their ignorance about the order and consequent re-location of the GPA offices.

It was learnt that the health department did not inform the DGHS office about the latest decision.

The health department has also allocated 20 rooms in the hostel of the College of Nursing Lahore to female students of the SIMS.

When contacted, officials concerned claimed that the shifting of the GPA offices would affect its working for quite some time as it was working to detect adulteration in samples received from five divisions —- Lahore, Gujranwala, Faisalabad, Sargodha and Rawalpindi.

They said the GPA offices were already short of space as its five labs were stuffed in three rooms. It was also looking for place to house its instruments and set up a sample receipt centre.

When contacted, IPH officials said the new hostel building had not yet been handed over to the institute by the building department. They said the institute was being constructed to accommodate the increasing number of students.

At present, the officials claimed, some 24 students were living in the old 12-room hostel. They said the new hostel had 16 rooms accommodation.

It was also learnt that the matter of the new hostel building was under litigation. When contacted, PGMI/Services Principal Executive Officer Prof Khalilur Rehman said the SIMS, yet to be notified, would be a self-financing institution. He said the institute would admit maximum 60 students. He, however, said the self-finance fees charged from students would be less than those charged by private medical colleges.

The students, who had managed to enter the top 2,014 candidates list after the pre-admission entry test but fail to get admission to any medical college due to less number of seats available in seven medical colleges, would be offered admission to the SIMS.

Prof Khalil said the teacher-student ratio in the SIMS would be excellent as the postgraduate students of the PGMI would also teach basic sciences to institute students.—M.M