Docs to campaign against minister

A group of doctors want to print "thousands" of pamphlets and campaign against the Health Minister and MIC leaders in the coming general election

PETALING JAYA: A group of disgruntled Indian doctors intend to campaign against Health Minister Liow Tiong Lai, at the Bentong parliamentary constituency in the run-up to the 13th general election, which is just around the corner.

The doctors, mostly from the de-recognized Crimea State Medical University (CSMU), also said they would campaign against all MIC candidates in nine parliament and 19 state seats nationwide in the polls.

The group spokesperson, who declined to be named, said they would print “thousands” of pamphlets against Liow highlighting the double standard practiced by the Malaysian Medical Council and the Health Ministry over the de-recognition of CSMU.

Yesterday, Liow announced that the medical study programme offered by CSMU, based in Ukraine, was withdrawn from the second schedule of the 1971 Medical Act with immediate effect.

He said following the de-recognition, the graduates of CSMU who completed their studies must pass the medical qualifying test to register with the Malaysian Medical Council (MPM) as a doctor.

Liow clarified that the decision to withdraw the programme was made based on the suggestion of the monthly meeting of the MPM Medical Studies Recognition Technical Committee, after finding several weaknesses in CSMU.

CSMU received recognition to offer a medical study programme on Aug 7, 2001 but since then many complaints had been received with regard to the institution and the performance of its graduates.

A visitors’ panel for re-evaluation sent in 2003 found many serious weaknesses which were believed to be adversely affecting the quality of study at CSMU.

He said the Cabinet supported the withdrawal of the recognition of CSMU by MPM in 2005, but to ensure it would not affect Malaysian students studying there, the decision only involved students registered at the university after Dec 31, 2005.

But during a re-evaluation visit last Oct 18-20, following several requests by CSMU, the evaluation panel found there were still serious weaknesses as found in the previous visits, he said.

The group of doctors also revealed that they would campaign against Liow and the MIC leaders using the mobile phone short-messaging-service (sms).

“We have already sent SMS to all our members to be prepared for the polls…we would work against Liow and MIC leaders who we feel have let us down. MIC does not care…it is silent on our woes.

“The party is supposed to protect Indians. We are victimized but the party turns a blind eye. We will distribute these pamphlets we plan to print, door-to-door. We want voters to kick out Liow and MIC leaders,” said the spokesperson.

MIC has failed Indian students

Meanwhile, a PKR Indian leader today lashed out at MIC, claiming that leaders of the largest Indian political party in the country has failed to empower Indian students to pursue affordable medical studies overseas.

“They have not learnt from their past mistakes. They are still subservient to Umno, taking peanuts promised by the Prime Minister (Najib Tun Razak),” Malacca PKR vice chairman G Rajendran said.

He said MIC was “deliberately pretending” to be in the dark over the double standard practiced by the Malaysian Medical Council (MMC) in not recognising CSMU.

“There are a dozen of stories in the mainstream media on the wrongdoings of the MMC on CSMU’s de-recognition. Unfortunately, until today MIC is ignoring the issue,” he added.

He also said that the de-recognition of CSMU not only affected Indian students but also Malay students as there are 500 Malays who graduated since 2005.

The PKR man also said while the cost of studying medicine at CSMU hovered around RM120,000, it would cost a student a whopping RM250,000 to study medicine at the MIC owned Asian Institute of Medicine, Science and Technology.