PESHAWAR: The medical teaching institution Lady Reading Hospital (LRH) Peshawar has decided to establish a medical college on its premises as the biggest and oldest health facility of the province is yet to have a medical school.

LRH, established in 1926, has served as pioneer of medical specialties in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa but unlike other teaching hospitals it doesn’t have its medical college despite having the required infrastructure, according to officials.

They said that several attempts were made in the past to establish medical college affiliated with the hospitals but all such efforts could not be materialised. They said that LRH played important role in producing specialists, who later served in other hospitals and colleges.

Officials said that most of the noted consultants worked in LRH as it was the first facility, which started providing specialised health services to patients decades ago.

Committee working on the project to fulfil formalities of PMC

Lately, the Board of Governors (BoG) of LRH has decided to establish a college and a committee is working on the project to fulfil the formalities as per the rules of Pakistan Medical Commission.

The chairman of BoG of LRH, Prof Nausherwan Burki, told Dawn that they had started preparations to have own medical school as the hospital fulfilled bulk of the requirements.

“We are proceeding nicely. By next week, we will be ready to have the hospital ready for approval, a prerequisite, and the medical college a couple of months later,” he said.

Prof Nausherwan said that the people thought a medical college could start functioning with a building. “It is actually a community of students and teachers. We have the latter and will get the former. We actually have much of the buildings we need and will build more on existing LRH land,” he said. The LRH spreads over 220 kanals of land.

“What is needed is an auditorium and small conference rooms and we have these in the new medical building. To have a medical college, there is need for a basic sciences laboratory,” said Prof Nausherwan.

He said that they would get approval for the medical college by March next from Pakistan Medical Commission.

The 1800-bed LRH has 33 specialties, 20 faculty, 60 medical officers and 1,042 training medical officers. The hospital has recruited three adult cardiac surgeons and as many paediatric cardiac surgeons.

LRH has the services of rare specialists but non-existence of a medical college is the main issue, which hampers the merit-based students to become doctors by paying lesser fee. A private medical college charges more than Rs1.3 million from a single student per year whereas the fee at the public sector college is only Rs26,000.

Khyber Pakhtunkhwa has 15 medical schools, including 10 medical and five dental colleges in public sector and 10 medical colleges and six dental colleges in private sector. The government has also approved establishment of five more medical colleges in Charsadda, Haripur, Buner, Mansehra and Karak.

Officials in health department said that there were 11 medical teaching institutions in the province and except LRH all had their own affiliated medical and dental colleges where the students were enrolled on merit. The health department is encouraging the private sector to establish medical colleges under the public-private partnership to produce more doctors and benefit the patients in the rural areas.

Published in Dawn, August 24th, 2022