ISLAMABAD: President Mamnoon Hussain invited stakeholders to join him for a meeting to address the problems of the prospective students of the Federal Medical and Dental College (F MDC) at the presidency on July 6.

Almost 100 students, whose names appeared on the merit list of the FMDC but were denied admission, gathered outside the National Press Club on Thursday and demanded that their classes start as soon as possible.

Students sat for the admission test held on April 12 by the National Testing Service (NTS) and the list of successful candidates was circulated on April 22.

Since then, the candidates have repeatedly contacted the FMDC and Pakistan Medical and Dental Council (PMDC) for their admission but have not received a response. The students said that if they do not join the collegethis year, they would have to wait an entire year to apply to other colleges.

Students said the PMDC had instructed the college to stop admitting new students as they did not have the required facilities and faculty members. Moreover, the college is not af filiated with any university.

Meanwhile the Prime Minister made the college a `constituent` of Shaheed Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto Medical University (Pims) and the administration at Pims agreed to upgrade facilities.

`The PMDC sent an inspection team to the F MDC on 15th June 2015 and gave the FMDC another chance to complete the faculty,` they said.

A student said that the FMDC is the only public sector medical college in Islamabad.

The PMDC allowed the college to function without adequate facilities and faculty members. `Now the college has acquired funds and developed infrastructure albeit poor. It is not fair to halt admissions and destroy the futureof 100 deserving students,` she said.

`We have sent applications to the prime minister and also filed a case with the Federal Ombudsman for the resolution of the issue.

The Federal Ombudsman has given a date of 17th July for the hearing which will be too late,` she said.

Another student said the FMDC should be allowed to start classes provisionally and meanwhile all the deficiencies should be addressed.

Pims Vice Chancellor Dr Javed Akram told Dawn that although his meeting with the president of PMDC is scheduled for Friday but on his request President Mamnoon Hussain has called a meeting for 6th July at 11am.

`In the meeting, Secretary Ministry of National Health Services, PMDC, Secretary Cabinet and other stakeholders will participate. I have already made a presentation for the meeting and hopefully Mr Hussain direct classes to start at FMDC,` he said.