ISLAMABAD: A day after it allowed faculty members to leave their colleges, the Pakistan Medical and Dental Council (PMDC) has established a committee to scrutinise legal and financial matters and the documents of all new medical and dental colleges.

Some analysts say that because of this decision, faculty members will be able to join the new medical colleges for a while and after their colleges get registered, they will be able to go back to the colleges they were working at earlier.

A member of the committee, Dr Amir Hussein Bandesha said it will be ensured that faculty members do not join medical colleges which are yet to be registered.

Committee will make sure faculty members do not join yet-to-be registered medical colleges

The committee consists of PMDC President Prof Dr Shabbir Lehri, Vice President Prof Dr Abid Farooqi, Dr Shafiqur Rehman, Dr Amir Hussein Bandesha, Dr Mohammad Haroon and Dr Shafiqur Rehman, according to a statement issued by the council on Friday.

“The committee will be responsible to check legal and financial requirements for each new medical and dental college before first comprehensive inspection after the new colleges are referred by Ministry of National Health Services for the purpose of recognition with council,” the statement says.

The statement reports Dr Lehri as saying that transparency will be ensured during the process and that the council will inspect institutions by the end of September, hold sessions in the last week of October to decide cases of recognition and shall forward cases to the federal government for the process of notification.

Acting Registrar Dr Syed Azhar Ali Shah said after their documents are scrutinised, only eligible colleges will be called for presentation before the Executive Committee as per law.

A PMDC official said the council circulated regulations on Thursday, available with Dawn, for the appointment of faculty members and allowed them to transfer from their colleges from Sept 1 to Dec 31.

“Because of the approval, faculty members will be hired by the administrations of medical colleges which are yet to be registered. However, faculty members will leave after the registration of the colleges. As admissions are held from October to January, so after the completion of the admission process, the availability of faculty members will become a huge problem,” he said.

“Currently, we don’t have faculty members for the social sciences, anatomy, physiology, bio chemistry, pharmacology, forensic medicine etc. In some colleges, almost 50pc seats are vacant and even rules have been relaxed such as assistant and associate professors are allowed to become dean if a professor is not available. The issue will worsen because of the registration of 20 new medical colleges,” he said.

Dr Bandesha told Dawn that it has been decided that faculty members can transfer to registered medical colleges but not to those which have not been registered.

“We are empowered to make such rules and will implement them. There are 300 points of faculty members and each applicant college needs to have 280 points. We will not register new medical colleges if they cannot hire faculty members,” he said.

Dr Bandesha added that faculty members from those medical colleges which have 80pc faculty members will be allowed to join new medical colleges but the past practice in which whole departments were moved to new colleges will not be allowed.

Published in Dawn, July 22nd, 2017