Malaysians are not interested in a war of words between Deputy Higher Education Minister Fu Ah Kiow and Health Ministry director-general Dr Ismail Merican.

The more important issue, according to Parliamentary Opposition Leader Lim Kit Siang, is how to safeguard public interest by ensuring the standard of local medical schools

"Doctors who have no clinical skills to diagnose diseases are clearly incompetent and there is no need for a war of semantics over it," he said in a statement today.

Instead of locking horns, he said the public must be told who is responsible for the failure in maintaining minimal standards of medical education and what immediate remedial measures are being taken.

"Or will the scandal end up in a farce with the two ministries patching-up and burying their differences, claiming it was storm in a tea-cup caused by a miscommunication and misunderstanding by their subordinates as a result of irresponsible media reporting?" he asked.

Where's the minister?

On the same note, the veteran politician questioned why Higher Education Minister Dr Shafie Salleh is hiding behind his subordinate?

Ismail ( left ) started the ball rolling when he was quoted in the New Straits Times yesterday as saying that private medical colleges are producing doctors with no clinical skills and government hospitals were unable to accommodate the increasing number of students needing clinical training.

This raised Fu's temperature, who then took the director-general to task for making a 'sweeping statement' which could undermine public confidence in doctors.

Ismail responded by asking Fu ( left ) to check the facts before dishing out accusations.

The director-general said he did not dismiss present doctors as incompetent but was referring to their lack of clinical training due to the poor staff-to-student ratio in certain private colleges.