Arab Health Congress - 2012: 'Pakistanis keen to import latest surgical equipment'

Pakistanis once known as the world's best manufacturers and exporters of surgical goods have shown keen interest in importing latest surgical equipment from different countries for local hospitals at the Arab Health Congress - 2012 concluded at Dubai on January 26, 2012.
Dr Wasim Mirza, Director Marketing of Biowell, who participated in the conference, told Business Recorder on Saturday that over 3000 companies participated in the Arab Health Congress-2012 and booked orders for surgical products and items. A large number of commercial importers from Pakistan participated in the conference, held from January 23-26, 2012 at Dubai International Convention & Exhibition Centre, Dubai.
Depending on the nature of requirements at Pakistani hospitals, surgical equipment of latest technology were booked by domestic commercial importers. Pakistani importers showed keen interest in stalls of surgical equipment of Middle East countries, Malaysia, China, UK, USA, Germany, Thailand, Turkey and European countries.
He said the Middle East Surgery Conference ponders over a very concurrent exploration over the discussions and debates about the latest experiments, researches and technical advances that are rendered in the development of surgical structures in the health organisations of Middle East countries. The conference was a landmark event, which marks an important date in the calendar of surgeons in the region. This Conference was promoted under the umbrella of International College of Surgeons. Unique in it's concept, this event combines the relative strengths of several Surgical Societies to hold a co-operative mega surgical event at which every Surgeon in the region would find something of interest.
The conference offered an opportunity to gain an understanding of the latest developments in the fields of surgery that encompass, Hepatobilliary surgery, Surgical Gastroenterology, Bariatric and Metabolic surgery, Breast surgery, Trauma ,Cosmetic surgery, Endocrine surgery, Hernia Surgery, Paediatric Surgery, Vascular and Interventional Radiology, Surgical Oncology and Surgical Intensive Care, Director Marketing of Biowell added.
Muhammad Tariq Director Marketing of U-Care told this scribe that it is surprisingly to note that not a single stall of Pakistan's surgical industry was seen during the 3-4 days during Arab Health Congress-2012 conference. I have visited all the stalls during the conference but could not find any stall of Pakistan's surgical industry which is very surprising to me as surgical sector is one of the leading export industries of Pakistan. During these days I have visited each and every stall and specially went from Islamabad to Dubai in search of new surgical products, but there was no surgical stall from Pakistan, he said.
Tariq, who is also a commercial importer of surgical goods/cosmetic products, explained that over 300 leading surgical companies participated in the conference and Pakistani importers selected latest surgical products to be used in Pakistani hospitals for providing latest technology in the field of surgery.
When asked whether Pakistanis attended the conference, he said that hundreds of commercial importers of surgical industry from Pakistan actively witnessed the conference and studied new surgical products. However, participation in the conference and setting up of stalls of surgical industry are two different things. Commercial importers of surgical equipment actively participated in the conference but there was no stall of surgical industry of our country. Tariq added that Arab Health Congress 2012 also introduced the newly reformatted surgery conference as an innovative four days educational event. The 11th Middle East Surgery Conference was the most important surgical educational event in the Middle East by introducing workshops, master classes and surgery video competitions into the conference agenda. The conference run as a multi-track event, providing delegates the opportunity to choose which sessions to attend, be it on breast, liver, Hepatobilliary or GI surgery. The conference also featured new sessions on surgical procedures on highly-sensitive population including surgery during pregnancy, obese and elderly patients.
Some of key features of the conference were the medical education for surgical practice and surgeon career development; latest updates in breast surgery; latest trends in management of gastric cancer; surgery of the morbidly obese and best method of treating cancer in pregnant patients.
The conference also focused on issues in leadership and quality of surgery departments and the role of the surgeon; fundamental issues in cancer management; newest trends in cancer therapy including optimisation of radio-therapy and radiation oncology; latest use of human genetics/genomic studies to target cancer; future challenges and directions in management of various cancer such as colorectal cancer and use of surgical equipment in treatment of various tumours, he stated. The conference also featured newly introduced surgery master classes, designed to provide delegates with a multi-disciplinary session in management of various diseases such as breast cancer, colorectal, midnight disasters, etc, leading commercial importer added.