The scandal generated by the closure of two Medicine courses at the Universidad Privada María Serrana (UPMS) –from its headquarters in Asunción and its subsidiary in Ciudad del Este– goes far beyond isolated cases of falsification of public documents from the Ministry of Education and Sciences (MEC) and apparent sale of mau medical titles. Because it would be only the tip of the iceberg that led to the closure of those two academic offers. In the background, there would be a whole modus operandi that facilitated access to Medicine diplomas for students, mainly of Brazilian origin.
The intervention of the National Council of Higher Education (Cones), in effect, takes place from a specific complaint from the Vice Ministry of Higher Education of the MEC regarding the adulteration of signatures in the legalization of study certificates. From there, the governing body traces the students involved, who were few at the time.
“That situation was in a small number of students. But the intervention process confirms that it was a common way of acting, not only in the specific case denounced, but also in other students”, highlights Narciso Velázquez, head of Cones.
And they came across, he says, another 40 more cases of students who start at the Ciudad del Este branch and finish their degree “in an administrative process” at the central office. “We found students who completed three years of studies in one year, validating subjects from another university in Paraguay to María Serrana. It comes with a study certificate where he did three years, for example, and then in María Serrana two years ago and with that he ends the following year; sometimes in a third university or even in Brazil”, she says.
A mandate from the plenary session of Cones was to bring all these records closer to the Prosecutor’s Office. Because, according to Velázquez, “there are crimes and there is also crime.” And he affirms this in light of “if we are having people with medical professional registration who are not really doctors,” he emphasizes.
“This issue is no more than a mere crime, because we may be having the professional competition of people who do not have the suitability or qualification for the case,” he insists. It is that in the intervention, some “quite serious facts” were even verified, such as the issuance of degrees and certificates of studies “that show that they had completed the entire academic process, but that they lacked support,” indicates Velázquez.
It happens that the university alleges that its students carried out practices or internships in this or that hospital. But, when the Cones requested reports, “the assistance centers say they do not have the record of these students.”
“The hospital centers directly denied that these students had passed through there and, in some cases, denied that they had an agreement with that university. And yet, there are supporting documents as a conclusion of the academic fact”, he remarks, pointing out that all study certificates must have a backing “such as practice books”.
In the notebooks presented by the UPMS, those supposed health establishments appear where they were “but they are not real”, he opposes.
“The report passed by the university is not complete. Because, when you don’t have the support, there is no practice that they say they have had. On the other hand, there are some hospitals with which they say they do have agreements and the tutors were asked and they deny having done the student internship; but that they did receive remuneration, ”he reveals.
ÚH tried unsuccessfully to have the version of the rector, Dra. Norma Aquino; as well as the Dean of Medicine, Dr. Ignacio Mendoza. None answered calls or responded to messages sent.
