The Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government has decided to establish five medical colleges under the public-private partnership programme in the province.
“The colleges would be established in Buner, Charsadda, Mansehra, Haripur and Karak as part of the government’s plan to promote medical education in the province,” Health Secretary Amir Sultan Tareen told .
“We are working very quickly on the plan in collaboration with Khyber Medical University (KMU) as the government wants to establish these colleges as soon as possible. The project has been included in the Annual Development Programme,” he said.
He stated that the health department was receiving requests for establishing medical colleges from the elected representatives of every district. He asserted that public sector medical colleges were facilitating the majority of intelligent students and even students from humble backgrounds could be admitted there due to lower fees.
There are 10 public sector medical colleges and five dental colleges, and seven private sector medical and three private sector dental colleges affiliated with KMU in the province. However, there are also medical and dental colleges in the province that are not affiliated with us,” he said.
Prof Zia stated that every medical college requires a teaching hospital. “We are therefore examining the available health facilities in the respective districts as well as buildings to house the colleges,” he added.
They said that they had already contracted out 19 hospitals, which had exhibited better performance and plans were underway to outsource 58 more health facilities within a month.
