SURAT TERBUKA UNTUK MENTERI PENGAJIAN TINGGI MALAYSIA-Penang Medical College mesti diSiasat.

SIARAN KEDUA

On behalf of all students studying at the college, I would be most grateful if you could consider helping by forwarding  the problems to the right authorities  so that checking , investigations and actions can be taken and  also publish these problems so the same mistakes will not be easily made again and suffering can be avoid

 There are serious problems. CEO has ordered a reorganisation of the college. The Library, the canteen and the students association are going to be moved to a rented building about 1 km /30mins walk library and students will no longer be able to use library, canteen or students association rest rooms at convenience in between lectures and tutorials. Survey shows that almost all students and lecturers feel that these planned changes are not good and will have bad effects.

Student leaders have gone to appeal to CEO but CEO will not listen.  Maybe CEO is not medical graduate, never studied medicine, does not know how difficult it is to study to medicine, and very pressurized and stressful too. However he should consider the opinion and the votes of the students too.

 Although about 75% students are on scholarship from MARA or JPA and not paying fees directly to the college, they are also the end-users and the customers of the College, and CEO should be the servant. College staff and management forget that scholarship students have a contract to honour, of 10 years service or a huge amount of bond money to pay.

CEO does not want to admit that management has been poor, space has been abused, and there has been very poor planning. The rented building has been left idle for about 1 year now; wasting rent paid of RM 25,000/- a month.  Also very bad planning as space at the current main campus is wasted on an office for Swedish Embassy and research offices which have nothing to do with student teaching.


 
CEO and his team have not been doing their work. CEO instead of planning college expansion and development has been spending time and money organizing Irish games (??using college money as well, please investigate) and other activities benefitting his friends e.g. He organized a motivational lecture by his friend Eddie Jordan and got very angry when attendance was poor and punished students by making those who did not attend write official letter of explanation of why they did not attend, otherwise their caution fee will be deducted to defray expenses. All this near examination time


 
A lot of money wasted on self benefitting expenses, but no money for student expenses. Students come last, library not enough books, clinical skills lab- not enough space, not enough equipment; students charged excessively for photocopied documents; computer facilities poor; allocation for extracurricular activities poor.

Students can count: fees per student x number of students. College gets very large amount of fees, but facilities poor. College advertisement says nonprofits why are facilities so poor. Please investigate and take right action if possible.

Maybe staff salaries are too high..? ??? Mismanagement .Staff usually not around???Ponteng to? Go home, play golf, private practice, and not interested in teaching students at all, only in showing off to students how cleaver they are.

 Students ask for facilities but the management refuses stating no money no space but these are available for the Irish and their interests, families and friends. The CEO forgets that he is spending student's money.

 Most teaching done by hospital doctors. Some not interested and nasty. Some try their best but are just too junior and don't even know much themselves. Some? Overworked, afraid to teach because not prepared. Many kementerian kesihatan young doctors who teach students are too young and do not even have postgraduate degrees.  So many tutorials and lectures cancelled at last moment

 The Medical College needs qualified and dedicated teachers, not old ,tired and uninterested retired  old European   doctors  who come to come to Penang to have a good retirement, running away from the cold to enjoy the warm weather , get very high salaries , more than double the salaries of the local lecturers

Careful and detailed investigations are needed to stop the wrongdoings and the exploitation of the students, their parents, the patients and the racist by the Irish who practically control the college The Irish have been heard to say that the local Malaysians will not dare to oppose them because the natives think that the white man is a superior being.

The Irish run the College and behave like colonial masters.  They think that a Malaysian Medical college needs their internationally recognized medical qualification and their medical curriculum and that the Malaysians will do anything to keep the Irish twinning programme and the Irish qualification.

However it is now very clear that the medical qualification from Penang Medical College is only recognized in Malaysia. It is supposed to be recognized in Ireland but Penang Medical College graduates cannot get employment in Ireland. 

The Penang Medical College degree of the National University of Ireland is not recognized in the UK, Singapore, or Australia. PMC graduates have to sit for and pass qualifying exams like the AMEC and the PLAB exams. In Singapore PMC graduates are not even allowed to sit for the qualifying exams.

Thus having the Irish degree is of no use because for all practical purposes the qualification is only recognized in Malaysia. So the Penang Medical College twinning programme  which costs RM 800,000 is not much better than the programs of the other medical colleges in Malaysia egg IMU(RM 400,000) Melaka Maniple(RM 400,000) AMIST (RM 300,000), ALLIANZ(250,000)

The Irish are making a lot of money from Malaysians. Fees in Ireland for preclinical initial 2.5 years are 30,000 Euros or RM 150,000 per year compared to RM 50,000 per year for the subsequent 2.5 tears in Penang. The PMC –Irish twinning programme only exists because of hospital Palau Pinang which is used for teaching, Without Hospital Palau Pinang the Irish cannot get money for the preclinical initial 2.5 preclinical years as they have no teaching hospital facilities to provide practical training.

 In summary, because of the wrong assumption or the false representation that the Penang Medical College –National University of Ireland degree is internationally recognized, the Irish are given the opportunity to be partners of the PMC twinning programme.

 Because of the facilities for practical training at hospital pula Pinang that can accommodate 120 students, the Irish are able to get 30,000 Euros=RM 150,000 per semester per student totalling (120+120 60= 300) 150,000x300x2== RM9, 000,000 per year (as there are students at the stage of years 1, years 2, and half of year3) for running the preclinical initial 2.5 years of the course in Ireland.

In addition the Irish  also control the  the clinical course in Penang running the course to the benefit of themselves and their friends paying  Irish and European lecturers 2-3 times the salaries which the locals are paid . Worse still most of the teaching is left to kementerian kesihatan doctors some of whom are very junior and do not even have postgraduate degrees.

Worse still the foreign lecturers cannot speak the local language and cannot communicate with patients, are tired and uninterested and many of them have not been medical teachers in their working lives but are suddenly made to become medical lecturers  to work in Penang Medical College in Malaysia.

All in all, the Irish, because of the false representation or misunderstanding that their degree is internationally recognized, have been given the opportunity to be partners at Penang Medical College which exists only because of the teaching facilities at hospital Pulau Pinang. As part of the deal they make about RM 9,000,000per year from the fees taken from the preclinical students in Dublin.

The role of the Irish and the cost of the preclinical initial 2.5 years in Dublin, contributes to the total expense of the twinning programme of RM 800,000.               

The fees charged and expenses spent by students are just too much. More so facilities are deficient, the foreign lecturer s   are tired and not interested. The use of kkm junior doctors for teaching is not ideal because these are junior and have to dedicate efforts at care of the sick.


 
The worst thing now is the the National University of Ireland which confers the degree when PMC students graduate is going to be dissolved in June 2011because of non profitability. This will even make things worse. This type of betrayal is unethical and immoral. First the degree is advertised as an internationally recognised degree, which it is not, but really only recognised in Malaysia and Ireland. Now the degree issuing body is going to be dissolved because of financial difficulties. This is very sad as many Malaysians work very hard to struggle for a livelihood.


 
The Irish are using Malaysians, their hard earned money, their hospitals as a cash generating cow to make a lot of profits. If the Irish have no access to Penang General Hospital for practical teaching they cannot run the college and cannot get the money from the first two and the half years of the twining programme.

 An investigation  or an audit is required Maybe a Malaysian Company must be given the opportunity to  run the medical college associated with the teaching facilities at hospital puluau Pinang like IMU,AIMST.  We would be grateful if you could investigate and circulate this news.

 I apologise for using only a pen name as the medical profession is a very close knit organisation and I may face difficulties if I so not respect the hierarchy and behave as a whistleblower openly. I hope that an investigation is organised. Much more wrongdoings will be found.


 
Thank YOU