Hundreds of medical college seats remain vacant

Hundreds of seats in medical and dental colleges have remained vacant despite lower admission merit thresholds, lawmakers were informed on Friday.

The National Assembly Standing Committee on National Health Services, chaired by Mahesh Kumar Malani, was told that despite relaxing merit criteria, around 100 MBBS seats and another 300 dental seats remained unfilled across the country.

Committee member Alia Kamran also alleged that the PMDC president had increased his own salary by millions of rupees and demanded that he respond to the accusations.

Responding, PMDC President Dr Rizwan Taj denied the allegations. "My salary increase has not been approved," he told the committee. "I am not drawing a salary from anywhere."

He added that he had also not drawn a salary while serving as dean of PIMS, adding that only a proposal had been floated to align his salary with that of a university vice-chancellor.

Meanwhile, Federal Health Minister Mustafa Kamal defended the existing admissions framework, saying that expensive medical colleges had not experienced vacant seats.

"Any medical college charging higher fees does not have a single vacant seat," he said. He stressed that institutions would have to improve academic standards. "Whichever college provides better quality education will not have vacant seats." The minister also called for increasing the number of seats in public-sector medical colleges.

PMDC officials informed lawmakers that nearly 40,000 students had qualified the MDCAT but had not applied for admission to medical colleges.