GUJRAT: The University of Health Sciences (UHS) has also expressed its willingness to attach the Nawaz Sharif Medical College (NSMC) with it as earlier the Punjab government’s Specialised Healthcare and Medical Education Department had proposed attachment of NSMC Gujrat, and Sargodha Medical College (SMC), Sargodha, with medical universities functioning under its control.

The health department had proposed attaching the NSMC with the King Edward Medical University (KEMU) and the SMC with the Faisalabad Medical University (FMU).

However in a major development on the subject, a representative of the UHS while attending an official meeting in the Gujrat last week, proposed that the UHS was also willing to attach the NSMC as well as the representative of the KEMU too expressed his varsity’s readiness to affiliate the college with it.

The meeting was attended by Gujrat Deputy Commissioner Dr Khurram Shahzad, Vice Chancellor University of Gujrat (UoG) Prof Dr Shabbar Attiq, Principal NSMC Dr Attiq, representatives of the provincial health and law departments and that of the KEMU and UHS.

UoG syndicate to decide on issue in its Aug 29 meeting

Sources privy to the meeting said except the representative of the UHS, all the remaining participants in the meeting had been in favour of attachment of the NSMC with the KEMU and it was finally decided to leave the matter of attachment of the medical college [either with the UHS or KEMU] to the syndicate meeting of the UoG scheduled to be held on Aug 29.

Adding they said the syndicate’s decision on the matter would be forwarded to the respective authorities in the Punjab government for further course of action since the NSMC had been a constituent college of UoG since its inception in 2009-10.

The faculty and students of NSMC as well as the district administrations of Gujrat had consistently been persuading the provincial government to change the status of the NSMC to autonomous institution instead of keeping it as constituent college of the UoG due to serious financial, administrative, academic and training issues since long.

The health department had forwarded the proposal to the Higher Education Department (HED) for further action and the HED had sought a report on the proposal from the management of UoG as well as from the district administration in June the last.

The Aziz Bhatti Shaheed Teaching Hospital (ABSTH) was declared as a teaching hospital of the NSMC as a temporary arrangement in 2014 till the establishment of college`s own teaching hospital and since then, a lot of serious issues related to functioning of the college and its teaching hospital surfaced, causing serious damage to the performance of the hospital and the standard of the academic activities of the college.

Punjab Assembly Speaker Pervaiz Elahi in the session a few months ago had passed the ruling for the ministers of health, higher education and law to separate both these medical colleges from the administrative control of their universities.

Published in Dawn, August 27th, 2019