GMOA refuses to accept private medical uni

6 September 2011 12:54 pm

In the midst of protests by the Government Medical Officers Association (GMOA) which had refused to accept the legality of the private medical university in Malabe, the Higher Education Minister today vowed that the university will continue to function and that many more private universitiesof the kind will be established in Sri Lanka in the future.

Minister S. B. Dissanayake said the Asian Institute of Technology and Medicine (SAITM), the first private medical university in Sri Lanka which was established in 2008, is a legally functioning, accredited institution although the GMOA has said that it should not have legal recognition on the basis that the medical college was functioning as a branch of a Russian university and therefore could be legally established in the country.

The Government Medical Officers’ Association (GMOA) has vowed to continue with a strike tomorrow. “We will definitely stage an all-island strike tomorrow in protest against the authority’s decision to legalise the medical institution,” a GMOA sources said today. The GMOA has also decided to withdraw its membership from the SLMC, if the institution is accepted as legal entity. (Olindhi Jayasundere)