Doctors, lecturers, students, trade unions and other groups in Sri Lanka have called on the government to close down the country’s first private medical university and to stop the establishment of other private medical institutions – a move that could have implications for international providers planning to set up branch campuses. The call came in the wake of a debate in Sri Lanka’s parliament last weekend on the South Asia Institute of Technology and Medicine, commonly known as Malabe Private Medical College. The medical college is a branch of a Russian university and is located in Malabe, close to the country's largest city, Colombo. The college will confer Nizhny Novgorod State Medical Academy degrees.