The Government Medical Officers Association (GMOA) Central Working Committee, which will meet tomorrow to decide what action should be taken against the controversy-ridden Malabe private medical faculty, said the institution did not have a future in the country.
The Central Working Committee comprises 180 practicing doctors.
GMOA spokesman Upul Gunasekara said the five-member committee appointed by the Health Ministry was expected to release a comprehensive report in two months and further action would be taken thereafter. In the meantime the private medical faculty has been advised to stop admitting new students.
Dr. Gunasekera said in addition to the South Asian Institute of Technology and Medicine (SAITM), Higher Education Minister S.B. Dissanayake hopes to set up two similar private medical colleges in Kandy and Battaramulla and another 21 private medical colleges countrywide.
“The Minister spends a lot of time thinking of the future of these private medical institutions which do not have the necessary standards required to educate young people to join the medical profession. SAITM should be shut down with immediate effect and the parents should demand a refund of their money as this institution is a fraud and has no future in the country,” Dr. Gunasekara said.
He asked why the ministry failed to provide adequate facilities to the Rajarata and Eastern medical faculties which were on the verge of shutting down due to the lack of resources.
“We have been informed that Minister Dissanayake has told Eastern University officials he would shut down the university’s medical faculty if they continued with their protest to obtain their demands. He has assured them the ministry will set up a professorial unit and provide other necessary facilities if they keep quiet,” GMOA Secretary Chandika Epitakaduwa said.
Meanwhile the Sri Lanka Medical Council (SLMC) in a statement issued recently said there were glaring deficiencies in SAITM which had not been addressed even after three years of operations in Sri Lanka.
He said SAITM had not provided facilities for clinical training, clinical departments and professorial units had not been established, heads of clinical departments had not been appointed and proof of adequate financial resources had not been provided.
“The gazette notification giving legal recognition to SAITM is premature and as far as we know not in conformity with recommendations of the inspection teams and therefore of the specified authority,” SLMC said.
Meanwhile SAITM Chairman Neville Fernando said the SLMC had accepted SAITM has a degree-awarding institute. He said arrangements have been made to send students to the Homagama Base Hospital and that a MOU has been signed with the Health Ministry for this purpose. He said that a 1002 bed hospital is half complete at the private institution and welcomed the SLMC to visit the site.
“We have recruited the best clinicians in medicine, surgery and other subjects to teach our students and assure that all students at SAITM will be awarded degrees,” Dr. Fernando said.
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