LARKANA: The Shaheed Mohtarma Benazir Bhutto Medical University which has received warnings from the Pakistan Medical and Dental Council over shortage of faculty risks cancellation of its recognition after the university loaned 12 senior professors to the newly-established Khairpur Medical College, it emerged on Saturday.

The university relieved the faculty members after the vice chancellor received a letter from the chief minister’s secretariat on July 21 carrying signature of the deputy secretary at the CM secretariat, Ghulam Murtaza Shaikh, urging him to relieve certain faculty members of their duties for two years so that they could join the new college, said sources in the university.

The apprehension the council might de-recognise the university and its constituent colleges over acute shortage of teaching faculty prompted the VC to write a letter to the chief minister, requesting him to lift the ban on appointments in the university.

SMBBMU VC Prof Dr Ghulam Asghar Channa said in the letter dated Aug 28 that it was his fourth letter, he had earlier written to the CM in May, June and July about deteriorating state of affairs at the university due to the ban on appointments, and about the fear the council could de-recognise the university.

He said: “We are unable to achieve the goal because of acute shortage of staff in the constituent colleges, administrative departments and offices.” Besides, the existing staff was being lured away by the new colleges, he said.

The PMDC had already warned that the Chandka Medical College, Larkana, would not be recognised because of deficiency of faculty. The council had not granted recognition to Bibi Assefa Dental College, Pakistan Nursing Council, Islamabad, had not recognised the Benazir Institute of Nursing and Community Health Sciences while the Pharmacy Council of Pakistan had refused to recognise the pharmacy department while one batch of Ghulam Mohammad Mahar Medical College, Sukkur, had been de-recognised by the PMDC, he said.

The VC said the Institute of Health and Management Sciences had been shut down after the Higher Education Commission, Islamabad, de-recognised it. Besides, the unattractive environment at the university was forcing trained teaching faculty and staff to leave for greener pastures, he said.

The VC requested the chief minister to immediately lift the ban on appointments so as to enable the university to meet the minimum number of faculty required by the council, said sources in the university.

But despite the acute shortage of faculty, the SMBBMU management could withstand the pressure which came in the form of a letter from the CM secretariat and relieved 12 of its senior faculty members, including professors, associate professors and assistant professors who were serving in the departments of surgery, medicine, orthopaedic, radiology, bio-chemistry, forensic medicine, physiology and urology at the CMC and GMMMC.

The sources said that at a recent meeting the syndicate had earlier refused to allow those faculty members to go whose names were recommended by the health secretary for the Khairpur Medical College on June 13. But the university management did as it was asked by the CM secretariat.

Dr Ikram Tunio, general secretary of Larkana chapter of the Pakistan Medical Association, said that allowing senior faculty members to leave would be tantamount to ruining the old institutions at the cost of new ones. Unfortunately, he said, the SMBBMU was the only institution in Sindh where a ban had been imposed on new appointments.

Published in Dawn, September 7th, 2014