Uniport Denies Sanction On Medical College

Authorities of University of Port Harcourt, have denied that the institution has been sanctioned by the Dental and Medical Council of Nigeria.

Speaking in a telephone interview with The Tide, the university’s Deputy Registrar and Public Relations Officer  Dr Williams Wodi said there was no sanction on its medical college programme.

Wodi said; “there is no sanction; what happened was that the College of Health Sciences in the 2008/2009 academic session over admitted students and so the Dental and Medical Council of Nigeria insisted that we either suspend our programme or not admit people for this session”.

According to Wodi, there will be no admission for the 2011/2012 academic session to enable the College clear the backlog and remain within their admission quota.

He explained that UNIPORT’s admission quota was 100 medical students as new intakes, but that they exceeded that by admitting 120, 130 in the past, due to pressure.

He added that all the candidates who applied for Medicine have been advised to change to Dentistry, Nursing, Pharmacy or any of the Science in the University.

Sources at the University told The Tide that the regulatory body, gave the sanction when it visited the school for accreditation.

Our source stated that the accreditation team, explained that the action became necessary in order to depopulate the College, which was presently operating with more students than the College has capacity for.

A source at the office of the  College Provost who spoke on condition of anonymity, stated that the College had over-admitted candidates in previous years.

According to our source, the sanction has nothing to do with the quality of medical doctors produced by  the College, saying that graduates of the college are  were among the best in the country, but the accreditation team feared that the over population of the College might affect the learning capacity of the students.