ISLAMABAD, Jan 10: The Pakistan Medical and Dental Council (PMDC) has decided in principle not to recognize medical colleges, even provisionally, in future if they failed to adhere to the criteria laid down for them.

The decision has been taken to discourage such medical institutions from wasting time and money of the students, the PMDC secretary, Dr M. Sohail K. Hashmi, said while talking to Dawn.

He said the council had time and again warned to take action against those dental institutions that were admitting students against the PMDC directives. He said the parents and students should ascertain the status of the institutions before applying for admission.

“Such institutions will not even be allowed to advertise or admit students or to hold examinations,” he said, adding that the PMDC was a regulatory body and its objective was to maintain minimum standard of medical and dental education. A college has to meet the minimum requirement and no compromise can be made on the quality of education, he said.

Mr Hashmi said, in July 2001, the executive committee of the council had decided not to allow those colleges hold examinations which were not approved by it.

The secretary was replying to queries at a protest demonstration held by the students of the Margalla Medical College/Margalla Institute of Health Sciences (MIHS) in front of the council secretariat.

The PMDC had refused to allow admission and inspection of the examination of the students as the institution was not recognized by the council.

The students asked as to why the council allowed establishment of such institutions which did not fulfil the pre- requisites. They also questioned the council’s sudden decision to close down the institution four years after it was established, specially, at the time of examination.

They said they should be allowed migration to other recognized medical institutions.

The PMDC, in its October 2002 inspection, had objected that the MIHS was situated in Rawalpindi, but affiliated with Isra University Hyderabad, Sindh, when according to the council policy, the institute should be affiliated with a university in the same province. The MIHS, in response, had stated that it was in the process of getting affiliation with the University of Health Sciences Lahore, which was still developing.

The council had earlier asked the MIHS to offer hospital facility as it lacked the suitable environment for the learning of clinical knowledge, saying the MIHS had two rooms in the operation theatre.

The eye and ENT departments used the smaller room, which was also used by other specialists dealing with patients suffering from different infections. Therefore, the arrangement for the eye department was not satisfactory.