Govt suspends academic activities of Rangpur Northern, Gazipur City, Ashulia Nightingale medical colleges

The health minister has asked authorities to suspend academic activities of three private medical colleges ‘temporarily’ for violating rules.

Students of those colleges – Rangpur’s Northern Medical College, Gazipur’s City Medical College and Nightingale Medical College at Ashulia – will be transferred to the private medical colleges under the relevant universities of those areas.

Mohammed Nasim gave the instructions to the authorities in a meeting on Sunday at the Secretariat, the health ministry said in a statement.

Dhaka University’s Vice-Chancellor Prof AAMS Arefin Siddique, Bangladesh Medical and Dental Council’s President Prof Md Shahidullah, the deans of Dhaka, Chittagong, and Rajshahi universities and Sylhet Shahjalal Science and Technology University, and senior officials of the health ministry were present in the meeting.

The admission process of Chittagong’s Southern Medical College for the upcoming academic year, 2016-2017, has been halted. Chittagong’s BGC Trust Memorial College’s seats have been reduced to 75 from 125.
 
Director for medical education Prof Md Abdur Rashid told bdnews24.com that those medical colleges had violated “many of the rules.”
 
For example, he said, the three medical colleges whose academic activities were suspended did not follow the admission rules.
 
“They don’t have sufficient beds and patients in their hospitals. They also have shortage of faculties,” he said.
 
Prof Rashid said they had also withdrawn the initial bank deposit, Tk 10 million, without permission from the ministry.
 

The director said those three medical colleges together have about 1000 students.

He said the BGC Trust Memorial College does not have “sufficient teachers and patients in hospitals to run academic activities”.
 
The health ministry said the meeting also decided to inspect all the 68 private medical colleges within next three months.
 

Separate reports of the health ministry, relevant universities, and BMDC will be discussed before a new private medical college is allowed from now on or licnence of the old ones renewed, and their seats increased.

Health Minister Nasim said “quality of medical colleges must be ensured to get quality doctors.”