There have been no replies to questions raised by student representatives about the planned opening of a prestigious medical school in Gozo by the Queen Mary University of London.
Last month a Memorandum of Understanding was signed between the health and education ministries and the Barts and The London School of Medicine and Dentistry, which forms part of the university.
The Malta Medical Students’ Association has expressed concern that the new medical school would compromise students’ job opportunities.
More recently, the University Students Council said the Malta Health Students Association and the Malta Association of Dentistry Students were also “kept in the dark about the situation they were concerned about the quality of medical education following the opening of the school.
When contacted, the health and education ministries said nobody would be kept in the dark, but it failed to answer other concerns.
“Discussions with the foreign institutions concerned are ongoing. All concerned constituted representative organisations will be duly consulted. Nobody will be kept in the dark,” the ministries said in a joint reply.
KSU insisted students should always be consulted when decisions involved them, directly or indirectly.
Following the MoU, the council gathered feedback from the students’ representatives and discussed the issue with the Faculty of Medicine and Surgery and Faculty of Dental Surgery.
Academics within these faculties were “only vaguely aware of the developments”, it said.
KSU added that since a very small range of diseases and conditions were treated at the Gozo General Hospital, it believed this could pose constraints on the quality of medical education.
It questioned whether the need for patients and case studies in Gozo would have a detrimental effect on students at the University of Malta, and whether the new school would include Mater Dei Hospital staff and resources, which would “undoubtedly have a detrimental effect on the resources available for UOM students”.
A spokesman for Queen Mary University had said this would be a Queen Mary institution, with this university’s staff providing teaching in the early years of study and Maltese hospital staff providing clinical teaching in the last three years of the course.
The main programme would be a jointly delivered MBBS (Bachelor of Medicine, Bachelor of Surgery) degree, plus a pre-medical year with the Gozo General Hospital.
Questions sent by this newspaper to the two ministries about staff and resources, when the school will start operating and whether it will impose tuition fees, remained unanswered.