MMC, ministry misleading public?

FMT PETALING JAYA: An irate parent of a medical student has lashed out at the Malaysian Medical Council (MMC) and Deputy Health Minister Rosnah Abdul Rashid Shirlin for allegedly misleading the public over discrepancies in enrolling Malaysian medical students in Ukranian universities.
The parent, who did not want to be identified, told FMT that while MMC and Rosnah insisted that the medical degree offered by the Lincoln University College (LUC) was a “stand alone” programme and not connected to universities in Ukraine, new evidence had surfaced that LUC inked an agreement of cooperation with the Ternopil State Medical University (TMSU), which was derecognised by the government.
TSMU’s official website showed an agreement of cooperation between the university and LUC signed on Dec 16, 2010 and according to the agreement, LUC would admit Malaysian students and send them for further education to Ternopil.
Upon graduation, students would be awarded dual degrees both from TSMU and LUC.
This, the parent claimed, was “clearly in contradiction” with the stand of Rosnah and MMC head Dr Hasan Abdul Rahman, who said that LUC’s offshore programme was a “stand alone” course, whereby LUC only used the universities’ facilities while the course was based on its own syllabus.
“This raises a question… why are Malaysian students awarded degrees by the Ukrainian university when it is a ‘stand alone’ programme?” the parent asked.
LUC is the first and only college to obtain the green light from the MMC to run such a “stand alone” programme.
Coincidence or something fishy?
TSMU is one of the three universities in Ukraine identified by the LUC to run the offshore medical programme.
The other two universities are Danylo Halytsky Lviv Nasional Medical University and Ivano Frankivsk Nasional Medical University.
The TSMU website also revealed that the cooperation agreement was signed by LUC’s directors Dr Amiya Bhaumik and Dr Abdul Ghani six days after the Malaysian government imposed a moratorium on medical programmes in Ukraine.
“Is this a coincidence or something fishy happened in MMC on that day?” asked the parent.
The MMC had been under scrutiny over the last two months since news broke out that LUC had approved three unrecognised universities in Ukraine to run its offshore medical programme.
A group of students had accused MMC of giving a free hand to LUC to rake in millions of ringgit through the offshore medical course.
They claimed that the actual cost of completing a medical degree in Ukraine was between RM120,000 and RM130,000. But with LUC acting as the intermediary, the price had escalated to about RM200,000.
They had also accused LUC of acting as an agent for the universities. This charge had been vehemently denied by the MMC and the Health Ministry, saying that LUC was conducting a stand alone medical programme.
The students also sent a memorandum to Prime Minister Najib Tun Razak, asking the government to recognise medical universities in Ukraine so that students could enrol in the universities directly.