Healthcare experts want the government to take steps towards strengthening the safety and risk management requirement in hospitals for healthcare workers while dealing with medical devices. This demand comes in the wake of raising concerns by many over limited knowledge that healthcare professionals in the country have about careful and systematic handling of medical devices.

Different types of medical devices like pacemaker, stents are widely used in the human body for supporting or sustaining human life, which makes them as important as drugs. However sources inform that unlike drugs there is no law in the country that mandates or over looks use of medical devices in the country.

D L Pandya, programme co-ordinator of the National Biomedical Engineering Society informs that 7 to 10 per cent of emergency situations, accidents and accidental deaths in the hospitals occur due to improper use of medical devices by healthcare professions. “Accidents resulting from improper use of medical device in most cases exceeds those arising from device failures, which makes it essential to ensure safe and effective device use to control and restrict incidence like this. The only way to avoid this is by identifying, understanding, and addressing use related hazards of medical devices. We need to develop a sound system that will also look into adverse reaction to medical devices like that of drugs, only that way we can find out the core area where we are lacking and take requisite steps to correct the same.”

He further stressed that most of the health complications arising out of medical devices in patients happen due to failure among healthcare workers in understanding the procedure, incorrect calibration and the subsequent use of the device and the inaccurate results.

“People often have misconceptions that when accidents happen it is because of the medical device in question, which is in fact a very wrong notion. All we need to do is sensitise the users, which predominantly are the healthcare workers on proper use of devices. Governments' cooperation in this front will be highly welcomed by all as it will not only boost the confidence of the industry but also ensure public welfare,” Pandya stressed.

As a step towards brining a change in this area, the National Biomedical Engineering Society is planning to conduct a meeting to educate and train the healthcare professionals about the proper use of medical devices in the hospitals. Panda who is also the editor and CEO Medical Plastics Data Service said apart from bringing in separate regulatory mechanism for the medical device sector steps should also be taken to sensitise the stakeholders and the healthcare professionals on the proper use of medical devices.