THE working of the Pakistan Medical Commission (PMC) has often come under criticism ever since it came into being as a replacement for the erstwhile Pakistan Medical and Dental Council (PMDC). One of the areas of its functioning relates to granting or refusing permission to set up medical colleges in the country. A recent such case has left me scratching my head in frustration and despair.

A medical college, along with a 500-bed hospital, in the vicinity of Khurrianwala in Faisalabad, is allowed to function by the PMC even though the main investor belongs to a family that has been a bank defaulter of over Rs15 billion, and various institutions have filed recovery cases in this regard. That being so, where have the funds come from to set up a 500-bed hospital and an associated medical college?

Decisions like these may well hamper all government efforts to take the country out of the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) grey list.

The matter needs to be looked into as it is directly related to the larger national interest.

Pro Bono
Karachi

Published in Dawn, June 17th, 2021