Status of SZABMU, its students questioned post legislation

Islamabad: The recent legislation separating the public sector Shaheed Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto Medical University (SZABMU), Pakistan Institute of Medical Sciences (PIMS), and Federal Medical and Dental College (FMDC) from each other has brought into question the legal status of the university and its students.

The SZABMU, the first government medical university in Islamabad, was established in March 2013 through an Act of Parliament with the PIMS, the federal capital’s premier public sector postgraduate medical centre, being its constituent hospital and the FMDC, the only public sector medical college in the city, its constituent college.

However, the recent enactment of the Shaheed Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto Medical University, Islamabad, (Amendment) Act, 2018, declared them three separate entities and thus, leaving the SZABMU without the constituent college, a legal formality for the functioning of a medical university in the country.

The FMDC students were quick to be seized by panic fearing for their future due to uncertainty surrounding the legality of their course. And as if that weren’t enough, the PMDC, the national regulator for medical and dental education, has asked the SZABMU to ‘clarify its status’ warning the students will not be registered in the country if their university doesn’t own a medical college.

Under the law, the PMDC registration is mandatory for all those having medical and dental qualifications to practice in the country. In a formal communication available with ‘The News’, PMDC Registrar Dr Waseem Hashmi informed SZABMU Vice-Chancellor Prof Abid Farooqi that under Section (j) Section (2) of the PMDC Ordinance 1962 amended through the PMDC (Amendment) Act 2012, a Pakistani university established under a Pakistani law and having a constituent medical or dental college or both.

He warned that if the SZABMU failed to prove that it has own medical or dental college, then the PMDC won’t register its undergraduate and postgraduate students. The PMDC registrar asked the VC for prompt clarification about the university’s current legal status.

Springing into action after the issuance of the PMDC warning, the Capital Administration and Development Division (CADD), which oversees Islamabad’s all health institutions in the post-devolution regime, made the top bosses of the PIMS, SZABMU and FMDC sit down to sort out the issue.

Promising prompt necessary action to ensure the smooth functioning of the three health institutions in line with the law, it also decided that the PIMS would continue to be the teaching hospital of the medical college, claim insiders.

The insiders also say heads of the three entities have agreed on the immediate signing of a memorandum of understanding to declare the FMDC the constituent medical and dental college of the SZABMU and decided that the MoU would be sent to the CADD for approval and notification.

When contacted, spokesperson for the PMDC Hina Shaukat Kiani said the regulator would decide about the matter only after examining the SZABMU’s response from ‘a legal point of view’. She said the PMDC had yet to receive the university’s reply.