PGIM warns: Either pay fees or forget exam

January 9, 2012, 10:41 pm , The Island.

By Don Asoka Wijewardena

Senior Assistant Registrar of Examinations of the Post-Graduate Institute of Medicine (PGIM) Saman Uyangoda said yesterday that the decision to increase the examination fee to Rs. 190.000 and Rs. 140.000 for doctors sitting the repeat MD part 1 and part 2 oncology exam had been taken collectively by the PGIM Board of Management, because each foreign examiner would have to be paid Rs. 500,000 to cover their expenses.

The PGIM said it would inform all applicants that if they failed to pay the prescribed fees, there would not be an examination.

Doctors who needed to sit repeat examinations in oncology, opthalmology and psychiatry were required to pay the prescribed fees for foreign examiners’, who would arrive from Australia and the United Kingdom, Uyangoda said.

Uyangoda said that though the PGIM was a government institution under the Ministry of Higher Education, the doctors wanted to dit repeat MD part 1 and MD part 2 tests would have to pay Rs. 190,000 and Rs, 140,000 respectively to cover the expenses of foreign examiners’ during their stay in Sri Lanka.

Government Medical Officers Association (GMOA) Assistant Secretary Dr. Sankalpa Marasinghe said that the GMOA had failed to get an appointment to meet Health Ministry Secretary Dr. Ravindra Ruberu yesterday. The GMOA would meet him today to discuss the PGIM issue.

The GMOA was hopeful that some sort of concessionary fee could be arranged for repeat examinations.

Dr Marasinghe said the PGIM belongs to the Higher Education Ministry. For want of cordial relations between Health Ministry and Higher Education Ministry many a problem has arisen. But the GMOA expects a positive response from Dr. Ruberu who will have to request the Higher Education Ministry (UGC) to reduce the fee."