A press report points to disturbingly lax standards followed by the Pakistan Medical and Dental Council (PMDC) in regulating the affairs of private medical colleges. For the first time, says the report, the Council has referred a corruption case to the Federal Investigation Agency after its team of inquiry found that students were forced to make 'donations' of Rs 1.08 million to 2 million for admissions. The inquiry conducted on receipt of complaints from several Amna Inayat Medical College Lahore (AIMCL) students also revealed, according to PMDC President Dr Shabbir Lehri, that "the college was deficient in different facilities such as faculty members, infrastructure, etc... it was decided that the college cannot give admissions in future because it lacked required minimum facilities." That obviously shows AIMCL had been functioning without meeting the necessary accreditation standards, raising questions about the PMDC's own performance of its duty as the regulatory authority for medical education.
In fact, the same report notes that the PMDC has decided to register another college in Narowal despite some of its members' concerns that the attached hospital lacked requisite number of beds. Sadly, these are not the only two examples where the regulatory authority has failed to implement the mandatory standards. The Pakistan Gazette notification of January 2012, lays down in detail the infrastructure requirements that, among other things, call for an "affiliated teaching hospital with a ratio of five beds to one student", and that "clinical resources in the attached teaching hospital may be sufficient to ensure breadth and quality bedside teaching." Yet certain private colleges have been granted accreditation even though there existed neither hospital beds nor patients. It is not difficult to see how ill-equipped graduates of such institutions would be to deal with the real matters of life and death. It would be an understatement to call this practice a criminal activity.
At the root of this vile practice are two reasons: endemic financial corruption and political intervention. Since the students seeking admission in medical colleges far outnumber places available in the existing institutions, medical education has become a lucrative money-making business for unscrupulous elements. It would not be surprising if some of them bribe their way into getting their enterprises registered without fulfilling the requisite site and infrastructure standards. A major problem, however, is misuse of political power. More often than not, these colleges are owned by influential individuals who employ their political connections to pressurize the Council members to do as desired. There are known cases wherein the PMDC's inspection teams gave negative reports to the Council, yet the owners managed to get their colleges registered with it. It is about time the Parliament's standing committee on health took notice of this activity and ensured no medical college gets official approval to function without fulfilling the laid down criteria.