September 26, 2007	Wednesday	Ramazan 13, 1428

LARKANA, Sept 25: The secretary of Pakistan Medical and Dental Council (PMDC) on Tuesday urged the Sindh government to hire much-needed faculty from the market to overcome shortage of staff at some medical colleges in the province.

PMDC Secretary Dr Ahmad Nadeem Akbar told journalists during his visit to Chandka Medical College (CMC) that there was extreme dearth of faculty in some basic subjects in medical education.

The additional secretary of health who was accompanying the PMDC official conceded that there was acute shortage of teachers in anatomy, physiology, biochemistry, pathology and forensic medicines. The government was making efforts to meet the shortage, he added.

The council aimed to provide cheaper medical education without compromising on standard, said Mr Akbar adding that the Punjab and NWFP governments had seriously tackled the issue of shortage of staff in their medical colleges by sanctioning huge funds to meet the challenge.

It was the job of Sindh government to overcome the shortage of staff, he said.

Asked about the fate of Ghulam Muhammed Mahar Medical College

(GMMC) of Sukkur, he said the PMDC would never have established the college where the future of three batches (900 students) had been put at stake. Besides, the college did not meet the council’s criterion, he added.

The additional secretary interrupted Mr Akbar saying that the requisite staff would be provided to GMMC. He evaded the query how could he solve the problem when the Sindh government was not ready to surrender seats to the Sindh Public Service Commission, making no recruitments and not showing any signs to procure staff from market.

He denied reports that medical institutions in Karachi had closed doors of post-graduation on candidates from interior Sindh and said that at present 125 candidates were busy doing their post-graduation in Karachi.

Later, the PMDC secretary accompanied by CMC principal visited the college and witnessed ongoing theory papers of the final year of MBBS at the campus.

SHC: The Larkana circuit bench of the Sindh High Court (SHC) on Tuesday issued notices to the DPO (investigation) of Larkana and SHO of Ketti Mumtaz police station to appear in court on Oct 8 on a petition field by one Harji Kolhi of Manzilgah village in the jurisdiction of Ketti Mumtaz police station.

He complained in the petition that the police were doing nothing to find his stolen goats nor taking any action against the thieves who stole away eight of his goats on Sept 8.