Zulfikar Ali Bhutto Medical College’s future in doldrums

PESHAWAR: The future of long-awaited Zulfikar Ali Bhutto Medical College once again seems to be in the doldrums as paramedics in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa on Wednesday vowed not to allow the Lady Reading Hospital (LRH) administration to set up the college in the building meant for the postgraduate training.

Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Paramedic Association provincial president Syed Roidar Shah told reporters that the decision of the LRH administration to set up a medical college in the building of Paramedical Institute in Dauranpur in Peshawar has sent a wave of concern among the paramedics.

He said the paramedics were not against the establishment of the medical college but the government should arrange a proper space within the LRH instead of occupying the building built for postgraduate training of the paramedics.

“This is the only public sector institute for postgraduate training of the paramedics in the province which was built after a long struggle. We will never accept this plan of the LRH administration or its Board of Governors to set up a medical college in the same building as the province needs trained and qualified paramedics and nurses,” explained Roidar Shah.

He said some elements in LRH were deliberately trying to create hurdles for the health reforms of the government by creating differences between the government and paramedics. Roidar Shah feared that depriving paramedics of their lone postgraduate institute would mean stopping the doors of postgraduate training for paramedics.

“It does not make any sense that the government is setting up a medical college far away from the LRH when there is enough space available in the hospital. It would save transportation and other expenses if first-year classes are started in any building on the premises of the hospital,” said the president of the paramedics. He threatened that the paramedics would go to any extent to stop the LRH administration from depriving them of their postgraduate institute. When reached, an official of the LRH told The News that it hasn’t been decided to set up the medical college in the building constructed for the postgraduate training of paramedics.

However, he said the BoG was considering multiple options to establish a medical college after the abolition of the postgraduate medical institute (PGMI). Some of the faculty members in LRH said they had heard that the hospital was being attached to the Khyber Medical University. The ANP-PPP coalition government had announced ZAB Medical College in Peshawar but could not manage to set up it during their five years tenure, even though the then health minister Syed Zahir Ali Shah belonged to the PPP. The college was not even established in the five years term of previous PTI government.