PMC serves notices to private medical colleges

ISLAMABAD – Pakistan Medical Commission (PMC) has served at-least fifteen notices to one dozen private medical colleges on alleged violation of preparing merit lists and taking huge amounts of donations from aspirant medical graduates, The Nation learnt on Saturday.

According to the documents available with The Nation, students and parents have approached PMC for alleged maladministration by the private medical colleges in giving admission to the students. 

Documents revealed that majority of complaints received by the PMC regarding PMC were about not adopting transparent procedures while giving admission to students and delay in display of merit list.

The PMC has also been approached by students and parents with complaints that private medical colleges have demanded heavy donations from them against securing admission in private colleges.

The PMC has served at-least 15 notices to one dozen private medical colleges and demanded to submit their response to the authority. 

Private medical colleges were directed by the PMC to finalise and display their merit lists in the mid of January. 

The documents available said that four private colleges of Punjab, four from Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP), three from Islamabad and two from Sindh have been served with the notices by PMC.

Names of the private colleges include Ziauddin Medical College, Shifa Medical College, Rehman Medical College, Amna Inyat Medical College, Sharif Medical College, Akhtar Saeed Medical College, Rawal Medical Institute, HBS Medical College, Al-Razi Medical College, Frontier Medical College, Kabir Medical College and Altamash Medical College. 

The letter written on complaints of not following transparency for the admissions said that complaint had been lodged with Pakistan Medical Commission wherein it had been mentioned that the colleges had not conducted transparent interview and also not yet displayed merit lists of the candidates for admission of MBBS programme 2020-21.

The letters written regarding taking donations by private medical colleges said that a complaint had been lodged with Pakistan Medical Commission wherein it had been mentioned that the college was seeking/demanding additional fee/donations from students or student’s family directly or indirectly for grant of admission in the college for year 2020-2021.

“In view of the above you are required to explain within three days , as to why the college is demanding donations from the students in contravention of Section 19 (7) of PMC Act,2020”.

Statement issued by PMC said that the Council took serious note of the numerous complaints received relating to demands of donations and advance fee for 3 to 5 years by some private colleges. 

It said that notices in this regard had already been issued to the colleges. The Council directed the Authority to ensure that once the admission lists were received should be checked to ensure that all students admitted had qualified their MDCAT and also against the merit lists issued by the Commission to ensure that no student had been treated in a discriminate manner by way of manipulating marks granted in interviews.