KARACHI, March 3: A federal government medical-cum-dental college in the city will become functional in September, Federal Health Secretary Syed Anwar Mehmood told APP here on Saturday.

The official, after the annual convocation of the Jinnah Medical and Dental College here, said that the federal government had decided to establish medical-cum-dental colleges in Karachi and Islamabad during the current year.

Admissions to these institutions would be opened from the forthcoming academic year, he said.

The health secretary said that the PC1 for the proposed colleges had been approved and necessary measures were being taken for the establishment of the institutions and make them functional.“There is no dearth of the infrastructure required to run one medical college each in these two cities,” he said, adding that best of the teaching faculty was already there and easily available.

Answering a question, he said a federal government medical college in Karachi was a genuine requirement not only because as the city had a large population of federal government employees but also because it had a major federal health care institute.

Senior and competent medical professionals associated with the Jinnah Post Graduate Medical Center, one of the outstanding tertiary care hospitals in the country, are already serving as teaching faculty for one of the provincial medical colleges.

“It would be appropriate if they serve as medical teachers at federal government college,” Syed Anwar Mehmood said.

He said the medical college would be solely a federal government initiative and there would be no collaboration involved.

“Initially we plan to offer 100 seats under the MBBS programme and 25 to 50 for the BDS,” he said, adding that a final decision regarding the number of seats was yet to be made.

—APP