LAHORE: The Punjab government has allegedly flouted the rules and regulations of the Pakistan Medical and Dental Council by making admissions to the public sector medical colleges for 2013-14 session ‘over and above’ the number of seats allocated by the Council.

The academic future of the medical students admitted against these illegally created seats is at stake because the PMDC has categorically refused to register them.

The disparity in the seats allocated to the government medical colleges in Punjab on the basis of ‘pick and choose’ had also created problems, a senior official told Dawn.

He said the Punjab government had also suffered another blow as the PMDC had derecognised the newly established medical college in Sahiwal. The council wrote to the Ministry of National Health Services, Regulations and Coordination wing, for the cancellation of the registration of the college for not following its rules and regulations.

The official said under the present scenario, the academic career of the college’s third batch comprising 300 students studying there since 2010 had been put on stake.

Health Secretary Dr Ijaz Munir told Dawn, “The matter of over and above admissions by the medical college and derecognising of a teaching institute is in my knowledge and I am going to take up it in an exclusive meeting with the PMDC officials next week”.

As the Council had also taken notice of the faculty shortage in state-urn medical institutions in Punjab, he said that he would try to resolve that matter too in the meeting.

According to the official, all the 20 public sector medical colleges in Punjab had finalised admissions in the last week of March in accordance with the government policy. However, he said, eight of these institutes made admissions against the PMDC criteria.

Rawalpindi Medical College (RMC) was the only institute that made admissions less than the seats allocated by the PMDC while the Nawaz Sharif Medical College, Gujrat was at the top with regard to admitting students more than the PMDC allocation.

The RMC made 330 admissions against 350 seats allocated by the PMDC, Punjab Medical College Faisalabad admitted 325 against the 250 seats, Nishtar Medical College Multan admitted 325 against 250 seats, Quaid-i-Azam Medical College Behawalpur 325 against 300, Nishtar Institute of Dentistry Multan 66 against 50, Services Institute of Medical College Lahore 200 against 150, Sheikh Zayed Medical College, Rahim Yar Khan, 150 against 100 and Nawaz Sharif Medical College Gujrat made 100 admissions against the 50 seats approved by the Council.

A majority of the admitted students were unaware about the consequences of such blatant violations being committed by the Punjab government as well as the administrations of these medical institutions.

The PMDC had directed the institutes’ heads and the health department to ensure implementation of the admission rules. It had warned them last year before the commencement of the admission process for 2012-13 session that the PMDC would not spare them next time for such criteria violations.

It had also got surety bonds from the heads of the medical institutions in Punjab that they would not bypass the PMDC admission rules in future.

As a penalty, the PMDC had also charged Rs50,000 from the respective medical institutions against each admission made in violation of the Council rules.

Moreover, the PMDC had also warned that in future it would not register the students passing examination from any public sector medical college in Punjab against illegally created seats.

These admissions have also opened a debate on the faculty shortage as all the government medical institutions in Punjab were already facing dearth of teachers.

The gravity of the situation can be measured from the acute dearth of faculty in only one discipline. Presently, 20 seats of professors of medicines were lying vacant in the state-run teaching institutions of Punjab, while the health department recently advertised only two professors’ seats in the discipline.

The department has planned to advertise all the vacant seats in phases in six months period, ignoring the concerns of the heads of the teaching institutes.

Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif had approved creation of 900 seats for the medical colleges on the health department’s recommendation in 2010. Interestingly, these seats were increased without getting PMDC approval. Fawad Hasan Fawad was the health secretary at that time.

Later, out of these 900 seats, 400 were allocated to the four new public sector medical colleges established in Sahiwal, DG Khan, Gujranwala and Sialkot. The remaining 500 seats were allocated to the existing medical colleges allegedly on the basis of ‘pick and choose’ which, ultimately, led to the discrepancy.

Heads of some medical colleges also raised the issue of the PMDC warnings in a meeting on April 13.