LAHORE: The Pakistan Medical and Dental Council (PMDC) has directed the University of Health Sciences to stop admissions for 2015-16 session at the Sahiwal Medical College, giving its final decision to the varsity for “closing the government college” due to shortcomings till further orders.

The PMDC wrote to the UHS vice chancellor stating that the college failed to meet the minimum standard set by the council to ensure quality education to students, an official told Dawn.

He said it had already withdrawn SMC’s recognition for its failure to meet the criteria when its inspection team identified critical dearth of the faculty a couple of years ago for the 100 students being admitted annually.

The approximately seven-member inspection team had comprised two senior professors from Basic Medical Sciences and five from Medicine, Surgery, Obstetrics & Gynaecology, Ophthalmology, Paediatrics and Otorhinolaringology.

PMDC says institute has failed to meet minimum standard

Since then the council had been giving warning to the SMC through UHS to address the deficiency of the faculty. It first ‘de-recognised’ this public sector college putting the future of 500 students at risk and now directed the UHS to stop admissions till further orders.

The final-year session of the first batch of this college is about to pass from this ‘de-recognised’ institute with a tag of “unregistered” graduates.

Earlier, 500 students of the DG Khan Medical College were unsure about their future as their college was not recognised by the PMDC since its establishment in 2010.

According to the PMDC criteria ‘every individual/institution intending to establish a medical/dental college must apply for an inspection to the PMDC prior to advertisement for applications of admission in first-year class.’

As the Punjab government started admitting students without applying for the first inspection, the college is still not in the official record of the PMDC.

Recently, the PMDC had also given an ultimate warning to the old medical institute, Quaid-i-Azam Medical College Bahawalpur, of de-recognising it for not improving the deficiency of faculty.

UHS Spokesperson Mohammad Atif confirmed the development saying that the varsity had brought the matter to the knowledge of the health authorities shortly after the PMDC asked it for stopping admissions to Sahiwal Medical College.

He said as the PMDC had already taken up the issue with the UHS, the Punjab government was addressing it on a priority basis.

Published in Dawn, May 5th, 2015

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