BAHAWALPUR: The Punjab government approved the upgrade of the Quaid-e-Azam Medical College (QAMC) to Quaid-e-Azam Medical and Dental College (QAMDC) with immediate effect. However, the move comes after a fiveyear delay.

A college source told Dawn that with the approval of the QAMC`s upgrade, the government had also announced admissions to the BDS for the 2027-28 session. It has sanctioned 50 seats for the BDSand aportalwouldbe opened by Dec 15 for the admission process.

For the recruitment of teaching and other staff at the upgraded hospital, it is learnt that the gov-ernment has sanctioned only 30 posts (contractual) of academics though there was an urgent need of over 200 staff members.

The BDS classes would be held on the existing QAMC campus whereas six rooms of the dentistry department of its allied Bahawal Victoria Hospital (BVH) had already been turned into classrooms years ago. It may be mentioned that delegations of the Pakistan Medical and Dental Council (PMDC) had frequently visited and inspected the QAMC during the last few months to ensure measures for the introduction of BDS classes.

It may be recalled that the QAMC was established in 1970 and since then, it was without a dental college.