Declaring the affiliation granted to the Kathmandu National Medical College as illegal, the Nepal Medical Association (NMA) has demanded an immediate annulment of the decision.

An NMA meeting on Wednesday, attended by senior doctors, chiefs of medical colleges and hospital directors and IoM dean, concluded that the Tribhuvan University interpreted the decision of Supreme Court to serve their own interest.

The umbrella body of the medical doctors has also warned of shutting down hospitals and health facilities if the TU fails to scrap its decision.

“We reviewed the court decision, documents from the IoM and inspection team before coming to a conclusion that the TU manipulated all the information,” said NA General Secretary Dr Lochan Karki. “The decision to grant affiliation was based on inspection carried out four years ago. Even, the IoM has repeatedly warned the TU not to grant affiliation based on the old inspection report. Yet, the TU has wrongly interpreted all these documents.”

Dr Karki said the TU has no option but to scrap its decision on the National.

IoM Dean Dr Jagdish Prasad Agrawal, who was present at the meeting, has maintained that the recommendation of the IoM faculty board is a prerequisite for a decision on the affiliation. “There has not been any decision by the faculty board to grant affiliation to the National,” said Dr Agrawal. The 32-member faculty board is the highest body of the IoM.

Dr Agrawal also said that they have been repeatedly asking the TU to not grant affiliation to any medical colleges for the time being as it violates the government decision.

Members of the inspection committee, including Professor at the IoM Dr Karbir Nath Yogi, defended their report of 2014 that had recommended for affiliation.

Dr Yogi maintains that their report chronicles the services that they found during their inspection. “We do not know about the current situation of the hospital. It was functioning well when we had inspected a few years back,” he said.

However, at its current state, the hospital does not meet a majority of the criteria set by the Nepal Medical Council to offer MBBS courses.

The TU had on July 27 granted the medical college affiliation to run the MBBS course on the basis of a Supreme Court ruling of September 16, 2014.