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Kalam deplores premature junking of imported medical equipment

India's top defence scientist A P J Abdul Kalam today deplored the premature junking of nearly Rs 70 billion worth of medical equipment annually imported into the country.

Adressing a conference in New Delhi, Kalam offered the services of the defence laboratories in restoring valuable equipment which was being junked only for want of routine maintenance.

He also suggested the creation of a body of trained personnel whose responsibility it would be to keep medical equipment up to date rather than expend valuable foreign exchange on continued and avoidable imports.

The scientist said there were meeting points between medicine and technology which could be used to benefit ordinary people and hoped that the All-Indian Institute of Medical Science would take a lead in the area.

Medical knowledge combined with technology excellence has provided leverage for finding solutions for complicated health problems, he noted.

For example, he said, virtual reality simulators can help preoperative surgical rehearsals using computer-generated human models. ''The fusion of virtual humans with real humans may ultimately lead to automatic surgery.''

Another emerging concept which could be of value for remote populations was tele-surgery where surgery can be conducted by a specialist doctor through remotely controlled micro-robots from a distance.

He narrated the story of how the visit of a doctor to a defence laboratory in Hyderabad resulted in the use of space age composite material used in the nose-cone of missiles in light-weight appliances for polio-affected children.

The Society for Biomedical Technology, an inter-ministerial initiative, was born to utilise research and technology spin-offs from defence laboratories to bring medical care to ordinary people.

In a short span of three years, the society has come up with several indigenous devices such as external cardiac pacemakers, stress test systems, cardiovascular catheters and coronary stents.

UNI

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