Parents of seven students of the controversial private medical institution in Malabe said yesterday they would send a letter of demand requesting the institution to reimburse payments made to the institution or else they would resort to taking legal action.

The mother of a second-year medical student of the South Asian Institute of Technology and Medicine (SAITM) told the Daily Mirror that they believed SAITM was not a recognised institution and wanted their payments to be reimbursed and compensated for the inconvenience caused to them.

She said that according to the gazette notification issued in late August this year, only students who had joined the 2011 September batch and thereafter would be recognised as medical professionals after they pass out.

“It is only now that we know that this was a lie. They promised us that they were a legitimate institution but they are not. We were lied to,” the mother said. She said some parents had asked for a letter stating that SAITM was an approved institution but said that they were not given a letter.

She said they did not believe that SAITM was affiliated to the Russian Nizhny Novgorod State Medical Academy though the institution said it was, and had not received any proper responses from the Russian university when contacted for information. She said academic staff in the medical institution were not up to the standards required either and that 11 students in her daughter’s batch have decided to leave SAITM.

“We have paid Rs. 13 lakhs to the institution so far and now we think it was a waste of money and time. My daughter is very upset about it as well. These students had so many expectations when they started this course. We don’t have a lot of money to spend. But we have decided to send her abroad and have already applied to universities abroad,” she said.

Source: Daily Mirror - Sri Lanka