PMDC gives conditional green light to fee hike

Islamabad :The Pakistan Medical and Dental council has agreed to allow private medical and dental colleges to increase fee by Rs0.8 million with a seven per cent annual hike.

For the purpose, the colleges will however have to grant admissions on merit, improve facilities, not to charge extra money in the name of donations and fulfill corporate social responsibility vis-a-vis patient care. They will also produce an affidavit suggesting that they will follow the agreement. If these conditions are acceptable to colleges, they will be examined in the next Council meeting for approval.

The development comes during the 154th session of the Council here with PMDC president Professor Shabir Lehri in the chair. The participants discussed the recommendations of the PMDC committee formed to review the request of private medical and dental institutions for increase in their fee up to Rs1.3 million.

After detailed discussion, the Council however decided that a huge hike in the fee would not be allowed as the PMDC was bound by the law to safeguard the interest of students and people at large.

The meeting was informed that the Supreme Court had taken suo moto notice in 2010 of the high fee charged by privately-owned medical and dental colleges in the country and therefore, it was decided to fix the fee at Rs550,000 per student with an annual increase of seven per cent. In 2013, the fee went up to Rs642,000. Now, the Council felt that the fee should not go beyond Rs0.8 million mark. It asked its subcommittee to negotiate the matter with private medical and dental colleges.

The meeting was attended by Council members Professor Abid Farooqi, Dr Sania Nishtar, Dr Asad Hafiz, Dr Amir Hussain, Dr Muhammad Haroon, Dr Mussarat Hussain, Dr Taj Muhammad, Dr Abdul Bari, Professor Eice Muhammad, Dr Imran Naseer, Dr Mangal, Professor Musadaiq Khan, Professor Ijaz Hassan, Dr Farukh Ijaz, Maj-Gen. (r) Dr Khaliq Naveed, Dr Khyaalur Rehman, Dr Feroz Jahangir, provincial health secretaries and PMDC registrar Dr Syed Azhar Ali Shah.