Saida Waheed FMH Nursing College: UHS asked to allow students to take exams

The Lahore High Court (LHC) here on Monday directed University of Health Sciences (UHS) to allow 91 nursing students of Saida Waheed FMH Nursing College and others to sit in examinations starting from January 18 (today). The court however observed to withhold announcement of the results till final judgement on the petition pending before the court.
The petitioner through Director Training Programme Mrs Irshad Javed submitted that the UHS had unlawfully denied permission to more than 30 nursing students per year to sit in examination.
The petitioner through counsel Sidra F Sheikh advocate submitted that the UHS on June 2, 2008 granted affiliation to Saida Waheed FMH Nursing College for teaching BSc Nursing (4 years) programme and post RN Nursing (2 years) courses only with annual intake of 30 student for each programme. Counsel said on July 2, 2008 nursing college wrote a letter to UHS registrar expressing dissatisfaction with limit of 30 students per year and requested for an affiliation for in intake of 60 students for each programme and later demanded it be increased to 75 students per annum.
Counsel said afterwards several meetings were held between the college and syndicate/ UHS on the matter and UHS authorities linked decision on the matter to a new inspection of the college premises and faculty by UHS committee but committee did not conduct the inspection despite several reminders and prolonged the matter. Now examinations are starting at the UHS from January 18 and the UHS has refused to give permission to students to sit in exam, playing with the future of the nursing students, the counsel said.
The counsel said FMH Nursing College is one of the best colleges in the South Asia and it has a contract with the Punjab government for providing 50 fully qualified/trained nurses per annum from each programme Bsc (4 years) and RN nursing (2 years) to for its public sector hospitals in Punjab. The counsel said the nursing collage has largest campus and highly qualified teaching faculty including 21 full time teachers and 34 part-time teachers from FMH College of Medicine and Dentistry. The college beseeched the court to direct the varsity to give permission to nursing students to sit in exam otherwise the students will face loss of one year in their studies which will affect their career badly.