ISLAMABAD: The College of Medical Lab Technology (CMLT), once home to students who travelled from abroad, has become largely inoperative due to lack of teachers, equipment and basic facilities.

However, National Institute of Health (NIH) Executive Director Dr Mukhtar Ahmad claimed that he has visited the college, and would take steps to address its issues.

The CMLT was established to provide medical laboratory technology (MLT) training. It aimed to strengthen the national healthcare delivery system through human resource development, by providing high quality academic and practical training.

Other objectives include producing laboratory technicians and technologists, and providing laboratory tutors for paramedical training institutions.

New NIH ED said he was ‘shocked’ to see lack of facilities at college

The college was initially set up as the School of Medical Technology (SMT) in Karachi in 1961, and moved to Islamabad in 1965. In 1989, the SMT was upgraded to the CMLT, and two year BSc classes were started in affiliation with Punjab University.

A number of diplomas are also held there, and in 2007 on the directions of the Higher Education Commission (HEC) four year BSc Hons degrees were also offered. The college was also affiliated with King Edward Medical University, and is not affiliated with the Shaheed Zulfikar Ali Bhutto Medical University.

An NIH official said that foreign students used to come to Pakistan to get admission into the CMLT because of the quality of education it provided.

“A number of students from Nepal, Sri Lanka, Maldives and other countries completed their education in Pakistan, and they established colleges in their countries after the completion of their studies,” he said.

“However, now the institute lacks everything from teachers and students to equipment and resources. Most of the teachers either retires or left the CMLT because they knew they would never get promoted.

“There is currently one permanent lecturer of English, Mohammad Yousuf, due to which the charge of principal has also been given to him,” the official said.

“There is another scientific officer, Farrukh Jamil, and she has been working as a medical technologist. The posts of principal, pathologist, two lecturers and three medical technologists are vacant. In addition, more posts needed to be created when the college was upgraded, but no one bothered to create them.”

The NIH official said subjects, including biochemistry, microbiology, haematology and micro-technique are taught at the college. “There are 220 students in the CMLT, 100 in FSc parts one and two, and 30 each in each year of BSc Hons.”

“In the 90s, when the problem of teachers arose, doctors and scientists from the NIH were invited to teach the students. But an audit objection was raised asking why doctors were teaching students during their duty time. The matter reached the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) during Pervez Musharraf’s tenure, after which payments to doctors were stopped,” he said.

Currently, six NIH scientists are teaching at the college for free. Eight visiting faculty members are paid Rs400 per lecture which, according to the NIH official, is why they are uninterested in teaching.

In response to a question, the official recommended that appointments should be made, new posts created and equipment should be provided.

“One increment should be given to the NIH scientists who have been teaching at the CMLT, and over Rs1,000 per lecture should be paid to visiting professors,” he added.

Dr Ahmad, who recently took charge of the NIH, told Dawn he was shocked when he saw the lack of facilities at the college.

“I learned that most of the posts were vacant. The CMLT is a teaching institution, and it has been providing [BSc Hons degrees] so it should be up to the mark.”

“As practicals are held there, a number of things need to be considered. In the laboratory it needs to be seen how many workstations there are for students and what the ratio of experiment equipment for students is,” he added.

“If one student does an experiment and 10 observe him only one student, who experiments, will learn. Extra funding is required for the CMLT because of a number of chemicals are required and wasted during experiments.”

Published in Dawn, June 12th, 2016