RAWALPINDI July 21: The Pakistan Biomedical Electromedical Engineers Association (PBEEA) has emphasized the need for a regulatory authority in their field at federal level.

This was discussed in the second annual general body meeting of the PBEEA held here on Sunday.

The association’s chairman, Brig Naeem Afridi (retired) presented a brief of the last two years’ activities of the biomedical engineers association in the promotion of health, especially for the maintenance of biomedical and eletromedical hospital equipment on voluntary basis.

Mr Afridi said the federal health ministry should follow the provincial health ministry in setting up a biomedical equipment regulatory authority to check the malpractices of private hospitals, clinics and laboratories.

He said the laboratory reports of most of these hospitals and clinics were incorrect and fake, consequently all prescriptions of specialists were useless.

He drew the attention of Health Minister Dr Abdul Malik Kasi towards the association which had a pool of biomedical and electromedical engineers, mostly foreign qualified and known for their research, installation maintenance and calibration of biomedical hospital equipment.

This training, he said, was only arranged through EME special courses inland and abroad.

The retired classified biomedical engineers, already working in this field voluntarily, are an asset and can be used for supervising and running the regulatory authority at federal level.

The PBEEA, he said, had already proposed the setting up of a standardization lab in the private sector.—APP