ISLAMABAD: A Pakistan Medical and Dental Council (PMDC) committee tasked with scrutinising applications for new medical colleges has sent back all 20 applications to the Ministry of National Health Services (NHS) because of gross deficiencies.

PMDC President Prof Dr Shabbir Lehri, who is also chairing the committee, said the decision to send the applications back was made because the colleges would have otherwise started admissions and in the council would have been blamed for delaying the evaluation process.

NHS Secretary Ayub Sheikh said the ministry had asked the council to scrutinize the applications and that the applications will now be forwarded to the ministry’s scrutiny committee.

NHS ministry had forwarded applications to council for scrutinising documents of applicant colleges

According to Mr Sheikh, the ministry had received 51 applications of which it forwarded 20 to the PMDC committee on June 30 for a detailed evaluation of the documents.

According to the list of applications sent to the PMDC, available with Dawn, 14 applications were for colleges to be established in Punjab, three for Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, two in Sindh and one in Islamabad.

The PMDC established the committee on July 21 to scrutinise the legal and financial matters of the applicant colleges. The committee was headed by PMDC President Dr Lehri and its other members were Prof Dr Abid Farooqi, Dr Shafiqur Rehman, Dr Amir Hussein Bandesha, Dr Mohammad Haroon and Dr Shafiqur Rehman.

The committee was to complete its inspections by the end of September.

“We were advised by the ministry that we should verify all legal and financial documents- such as a title of ownership of the building or a 33-year lease agreement in favour of the college administration, that the covered area be as per PMDC rules, proof of endowment fund and working capital etc- before inspecting the colleges,” Dr Lehri said.

The PMDC chief said that several documents in each application were missing which is why the committee had decided to send them back to the ministry.

“In the past colleges were approved without ensuring they had all facilities due to which students and the council faced many problems and the council could not close down the colleges for the sake of the students” he said.

“We do not want to take any risk and want to ensure only quality medical colleges are established in the country. Though the NHS can forward the applications to us again after the required documents are submitted, I don’t think most of the applicants will fulfil the criteria,” he said.

On the other hand, NHS Secretary Ayub Sheikh told Dawn the committee did a good job and that the council will be consulted when the ministry is scrutinising the applications.

The 20 applications which have been rejected include those for Avicenna Medical College (Dental Section) Lahore, Wapda Medical College Lahore, Al-Aleem Medical College Lahore, Hashmat Medical and Dental College Gujrat, Niazi Medical and Dental College Sargodha, CMH Kharian Medical College Kharian, HITEC Institute of Medical Science (IMS) Dental College Taxila, Abwa Medical College Faisalabad.

Other colleges in Punjab and Islamabad are Abu Umara Medical and Dental College Lahore, Bahawalpur Medical and Dental College Bahawalpur, Watim Medical College Rawalpindi, Shahida Islam Medical Complex (Dental College) Lodhran, Rashid Latif Dental College Lahore, Jehlum Medical College Jehlum and HBS Medical and Dental College (Dental Section) Islamabad.

Applicants from Khyber Pakhtunkhwa include Swat Medical College Swat, Malakand Dental College Matta Swat and Cantonment Board Institute of Medical Sciences (CBIMS) Dental College Peshawar. Colleges from Sindh were Bilawal Medical College for Boys Jamshoro and Muhammad Medical College (Dental College) Mirpurkhas.

Published in Dawn, August 10th, 2017