SAITM Director Dr. Sameera Seneratne said that the SAITM teaching hospital would be up and running by the first week of October and that unions and organizations that criticized the private faculty would then have no leg to stand on. “The SLMC changes its stance and its criteria continuously. However we have followed the SLMC book of guidelines and will continue to do so,” Seneratne said. He said that there were 80 fulltime lecturers at the college of whom 14 were professors and 21 were senior lecturers.

The SLMC had recently observed that the private medical college did not possess the required number of staff nor did they have a teaching hospital and had ruled that it would not be able to open its doors to students until the hospital had completed two years of service. Meanwhile the Alliance of Organizations and Intellectuals against PMCs criticized recent statements made by Dr. Seneratne saying that he himself was not an SLMC licensed medical practitioner and therefore was not qualified to comment on private medical education. Replying to this assertion, Dr. Seneratne said, “I am not a practicing doctor but I control most administrative matters at SAITM and therefore have every right to discuss matters pertaining to the institution.”

Source: Daily Mirror - Sri Lanka