Different lobbyist groups responsible for helping flout guidelines
Most of the private medical colleges in the country are providing medical education with acute shortage of regular teaching staff, laboratories, hospitals with proportionate patients, adequate infrastructure and transparency in accounts. Sources at the medical wing of the Directorate General of Health Services (DGHS) informed that private medical colleges hardly followed guidelines for Establishing and Managing Private Medical College.
A number of ministers, members of parliament (MPs), renowned physicians, political leaders and members of doctors’ associations are on the private medical college trustee boards and managing committees. Some of them also act as principals of these institutions.
Naturally, DGHS could not take any stern action due to pressure from the different lobbyist groups, said some high officials of the medical education wing of DGHS under the ministry of health and family welfare.
There exist a total of 3,350 seats at the country’s 48 private medical colleges and most of these colleges do not submit their annual audit reports, though it is mandatory for a private medical college to submit its annual business report to DGHS.
“We can get a true picture of these colleges through their audit reports. The number of students, teachers, quality and quantity of medical equipment, their expenses, admissions and annual fees as well as the development fees—everything can be learned from the annual reports,” said director of medical education, Prof. Dr Shah Abdul Latif.
“I have not received any audit report since joining last January,” he added.
Private medical college students and their guardians informed that these colleges charged large amounts of development fees in addition to the regular admission fees.
The fees ranged from Tk. 8 lakh to Tk. 25 lakh, which were exorbitant for many middle-income parents, said Shahana Parvin, a mother of a student.
“After my son’s admission to a private medical college, we are always being informed of many different fees including college development fees, annual fees, library and laboratory fees, and so on. However, we did not notice any development activities of this college in the last three years,” she added.
According to a policy modification on setting up private medical colleges, no institution or individual will be allowed to establish a private medical college without two years’ experience in running a hospital.
The modified criteria stated that a private medical college would not have an approval unless the applicant has
two years’ experience in running a full-fledged general hospital.
The ratio of students’ seats to beds should be 1:5, which means applying for a 50-seat medical college presupposes having a 250-bed hospital.
Sources at DGHS said that the Tairunnesa Medical College and Hospital should have at least 250 patient beds since it had 50 seats for students.
But DGHS officials found that the hospital had less than 20 indoor patients.
As per the rule, there should be one teacher for every ten students and that part-time teachers should not be more than one-fifth of the permanent teachers in number.
The government is also strict about the provision of poor students’ opportunity at these colleges as the college authorities frequently violate the policy of keeping 5 per cent of total seats for poor students, who should be allowed to pay fees equivalent to state-run medical colleges.
According to the medical education policy, the teachers and employees of the colleges have to be authenticated by the Bangladesh Medical and Dental Council (BMDC).
As per the new rule, no private medical college can be established in a rented facility.
A 50-seat medical college must have its own building on 2.5 acres of land or one lakh square feet of space in metropolitan areas while five acres outside the metropolises.
The medical education wing of the DGHS frequently visited these medical colleges and served caution notices when they found irregularities and violations of rules, Abdul Latif said.
For the first time, the government has taken a combined admission test for both public and private medical colleges to ensure quality of medical students. However, there are allegations that the private medical colleges continue to intake students after charging hefty admission fees, ignoring the merit lists.
The last date of admission to private medical colleges is December 15.
Prof. Dr Pran Gopal Datta, Vice-Chancellor of Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujib Medical College (BSMMU), told The Independent, on Tuesday, “If money matters over service and dedication to doctors, the quality of such doctors is always questionable!”
Another medical educationist, seeking anonymity, said, “For this reason, no good doctors ever come
out of private medical colleges and they hardly get any chance in the Bangladesh Civil Service examination.”
-With The Independent input
