27 January 2004	Tuesday	04 Zilhaj 1424

LAHORE, Jan 26: The health ministry has decided to close down all those private medical colleges that are not recognized by the Pakistan Medical and Dental College as well as lack basic requirement to operate as a medical college.

This was announced by Federal Health Minister Naseer Khan while talking to reporters after the inaugural session of a seminar on Leprosy in connection with the World Leprosy Day at the Shaikh Zayed Federal Postgraduate Medical Institute (SZFPGMI) on Monday.

The minister said the PMDC had also issued advertisements in national dailies as well as writing letters to the students concerned and their parents that they should avoid taking admission to unregistered medical colleges.

He said that most medical colleges did not fulfil basic requirements like a proper building, attached teaching hospital under the control of the college administration, a mortuary and an academic council. If the private medical colleges did not have basic requirements, he said that how they could produce doctors.

Answering a question, he stressed that the PMDC was fully authorized to recognize or derecognize private medical colleges all over the country. Over the years, he said, the standards of medical education were deteriorating and Pakistani doctors were facing hardships abroad. Now, he said, the government wanted to redevelop the standards of medical education.

The minister also said that the federal government in collaboration with the respective provincial and district governments had decided to launch a concerted campaign against spurious and substandard drugs within three months time across the country. During this period, he said that he would meet the pharmacists' associations to tell them to set their things right.

Answering a question that wholesalers and chemists usually strike when the government launch a drive against spurious and substandard drugs, the minister said the government would simply cancel licences of all those persons found guilty. "Selling of spurious and substandard medicines is a crime against humanity," he said.

Answering another question, Mr Khan said the federal government was constituting a committee to prepare a draft legislation to regulate alternative medicines.

Earlier, speaking at the seminar, he urged doctors and medical students to give a last push to eradicate polio from the country. Last year, he said, only 89 cases were reported from all over the country.

The minister said Pakistan for the first time was elected to the WHO executive council. Earlier, SZFPGMI dean Prof Anwaar A Khan and Dr Atiya Mehboob also spoke.