IFMBE International Liaisons Committee (ILC) 1994-1997Introduction The IFMBE co-ordinates its relations with international governmental organisations (IGO) and with the AFTH which is a non-governmental organisation (NGO) through ILC. The enclosed table lists the organisations we are currently liasing with and the people in charge of these. From the viewpoint of an IGO, the IFMBE represents an NGO. Why is the IFMBE liasing with IGOs? Do we get anything out of it? Does it further the aims of the IFMBE and its members and the medical and biological engineering community? What is the role of a NGO? We know, for example, that WHO is required to economise and cut budgets and generally achieve more with less money. In the following there is a compacted report of the ILC from the past three year term based on the full report presented in Nice. Table 1: Organisations with which IFMBE is in formal contact with IFMBE contact persons
Africa The UN and the world community looks at Africa as one of the priority issues.The IFMBE's activities and presence in Africa should also reflect this priority. However ,at present, the IFMBE has only one member society in Africa, BESSA from South Africa. In the last years our relations with BESSA have been intensive and fruitful. At the launching of the African Federation for Technology in Healthcare (AFTH) in Sommerset West in South Africa in 1994, representatives of the IFMBE and WHO were present and played an active role. The AFTH has individual members from 17 African countries. The IFMBE maintains contacts with the AFTH through Mladen Poluta and the AFTH Secretariat based in South Africa. ECE Since the early eighties, the IFMBE has had a very close relationship with the Geneva based Economic Commission for Europe (ECE) of the United Nations. This has resulted in joint seminars and publications, namely 'Digital Imaging in Health Care' and 'Rehabilitation Engineering'. The rehabilitation engineering activity also resulted as a contribution to the World Summit for Social Development organised in Copenhagen, 1995! This 150 page document is without a doubt one of the most significant contributions prepared by NGOs for this Summit. Both documents were published in English, French and Russian. Since these two projects the IFMBE has not launched new initiatives with the ECE Working Party on Engineering Industries and Automation. The ECE itself is now undergoing changes to be better responsive to the needs in Eastern and Central European countries. Clinical engineering has been discussed but no decision to take it further has yet been taken. Lack of funding is the main obstacle to launching new initiatives. European Union On the European scene the European Commission is an important player in many aspects dealing with our domain. They fund research, they regulate the safety of medical devices and they promote and co-fund standardisation activities of both the CEN and Cenelec. On the research side, Dr. Viviane Thevenin is the Responsible Scientist for Biomedical Technology in the Biomedical and Health Research Program of the Commission (BIOMED-1 and –2). A number of MBE projects receive funding from that program. Many IFMBE members are centrally involved in these. Our Clinical Engineering Division is involved in the regulatory affairs dealing with medical devices and in standardisation committees. UNIDO Relations with United Nations Industrial Development Organisation (UNIDO) date back to about 15 years. In the last 3-4 years, the life of this organisation was particularly influenced by the almost permanent re-organisations and structural changes. These movements and rationalisations are consequences to large extent of the worsening economic situation in UN. UNIDO should pay special attention to the sustainable development and to the reduction / elimination of environmental problems with particular reference to the agro-industry. Africa becomes a strong focal point for the organisation. The new mission statement together with the corresponding new organisation and budget was discussed in late 97. In this situation few possibilities exist for co-operation. Hopefully UNIDO will regain its activity and we will have again opportunities to co-operate. In September 1997 UNIDO organised together with the Hungarian counterpart in Budapest a seminar on service and maintenance of medical equipment. This is a periodical project every second year, which already started in 1975. Participants are from developing and least developed countries (LCD). (See a separate report of the last UNIDO seminar in this issue.) An IFMBE contribution could be mentioned that with IFMBE help UNIDO contracted two experts (one from Cameroon and one from South Africa) who worked as short term experts efficiently. WHO - Regional Office for Europe WHO - Regional Office for Europe and the IFMBE organised an outstanding meeting in Hradec Králové, Czech Republic in 22-25 October 1995 under the title: Health Care Technology Assessment in Rehabilitation Engineering. On behalf of the IFMBE, Jan Persson was the key organiser and contact person. World Health Organisation Relations with WHO Headquarters have been sporadic. IFMBE has assisted Dr. Andrei Issakov in identifying two medical engineering technology experts from Africa. This situation is the result of WHO's general feeling towards medical engineering. WHO still does not consider biomedical/clinical engineering as an important field. One may hope that the interest of WHO in technically related fields will increase to some extent when WHO will pay far more attention to Africa than it does now. As a hopeful indication can be mentioned that WHO Regional Office for Africa in Brazzaville welcomed with great interest and hope the South African experts who submitted proposals in field of appropriate technology development. One may hope that IFMBE could improve the co-operation through its colleagues in the Sub-Saharan region (notably in South Africa). On 2 and 3 May 1997, in Geneva, WHO had a formal consultation with NGO's. Summary of this meeting was recently published under the title: A New Global Health Policy for the Twenty-First Century: An NGO Perspective*. The document deals also with the globalisation and neo-liberal market approaches to health care provision, and states that at the international level consumption oriented lifestyles often negatively impact the developing world. Under the chapter: 'NGO support to renewal of health for all', it is stressed that WHO will have to establish a more open and co-operative system for working with a full range of NGOs on all levels. The NGOs are and should be powerful partners for change. Encouraging words, let us hope for the best. The Executive Board of WHO reviews at regular intervals relations with NGOs. The next review of the relation with the IFMBE will be in January 1998. As requested, we submitted our report in August 1997. UNESCO With the Paris based United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) there were no contacts in this period. In the next three years when the President of the IFMBE will be from France, the relation with this organisation could be strengthened and a plan of collaboration needs to be formulated. IAEA The IFMBE has had no contacts with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) in Vienna. The reason of this is that IFMBE's profile does not really match IAEA activities. Our sister organisation, IOMP, on the other hand, maintains contacts with IAEA. NGO Committee on Development UN NGOs have formed a committee, The NGO Committee on Development, in Vienna 1995, to discuss special topics of general interest and relevant to the activities of the UN. The IFMBE is a founding member of this Committee and Nándor Richter was elected to the Board of the Committee. The Committee organises 4-5 meetings in a year. These meetings are open to NGOs and to the public interested in the subject. In these meetings one UN activity is discussed. The speakers are scientists and diplomats stationed to the UN in Vienna and senior UN officials. Many of the problems discussed are particularly interesting to developing countries. Examples of the subjects discussed include:
Standardisation In standardisation, the contacts have been focused on electromedical devices and therefore in the international and European standardisation bodies, IEC and Cenelec, respectively. The other two bodies of standardisation ISO internationally and CEN, in Europe have not been followed as intensively. Clinical Engineering has been used regularly to inform clinical engineers about progress in this field. At our initiative a new work item was accepted for IEC TC 62: "Safe technology management of electrical equipment for medical use within healthcare". Members of the CED Board were informed about this proposal and asked to contact their national committee to support the proposal and to offer their competence to the work. The work has not yet started on this, however. This standard is expected to be of great value especially for the developing countries where governments and authorities are not informed about how to organise the acquisition, the use or the maintenance of medical equipment. Recommendations:
Nándor Richter, Chairman ILC Email: nrichter@orki.hu *© World Health Organization 1997. This document is not issued to the general public, and all rights are reserved by the World Health Organization (WHO) **Doc. no.: A/48/935, 6 May 1994 ***The study book Rehabilitation Engineering (150 pages) prepared by UN-Economic Commission for Europe in cooperation with the IFMBE [ECE/ENG.AUT/55] was considered by this NGO Committee as one of the best and adequate contribution to the Summit. ****This document is the "United Nations General Assembly resolution 41/128 of 4 December 1986". Available also on Internet: http://i-p-o.org/decldev.htm | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||