Atomic Energy Officer's Impressions Of Pakistan

Press, Volume C, Issue 29680, 25 November 1961, Page 16

Atomic Energy Officer's Impressions Of Pakistan

Pakistan has made rapid progress over the last two years, according to Mr R. A. Borthwick, the former Christchurch Hospital physicist. Mr Borthwick, who has just returned from Pakistan for five weeks’ repatriation leave before going to the Philippines for more overseas duty, is an officer of the International Atomic Energy Agency. The benevolent government of President Ayub Khan had been a great boon to the country in many ways, Mr Borthwick said. The atomic energy programme was a case in point, as the country, and especially East Pakistan, lacked conventional sources of energy. It seemed that power from nuclear sources would be an economic proposition there at a fairly early date. Other advances included an effort to drain the salt marshes, which were rapidly encroaching on irrigated land, and the start of social security measures. Mr Borthwick met the president this month, when the new Pakistan Atomic Energy Centre at Lahore was officially inaugurated. Mr Borthwick had been the adviser on design and construction of the centre for the final six months of the work. Health Physics Division Mr Borthwick left New Zealand in September, 1959, at the invitation of the international agency. His first job was to help establish the Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission’s health phvsics division in Karachi. Other work with which he was associated included the construction of medical radioisotope centres at the Jinneh Central Hospital, Karachi, at Dacca in East Pakistan, at the Mayo Hospital, Lahore, and at the Nishtar Medical College. Mooltan. The medical colege had the most modern hospital he saw in Asia. The radioisotope centres all had wards attached, which Mr Borthwick thought a much better idea than having a laboratory attached to a group of hospitals, as was often the case in New Zealand. The disposal of radioactive waste was such a problem that it was far better to have all the patients collected in one area where the wastes—including those from the toilets—could be dealt with together, he said. The Pakistanis were very anxious to get their scientists and technicians trained overseas, and this year about 100 were being sent for training. most of them to Britain.

The country had some excellent theoretical physicists, including men of world renown. These physicists would benefit from a new project due to begin in March—the construction of a 10-mi Ilion - dollar research reactor at Rawalpindi. Mr Borthwick described the encroachment of the salt marshes on the irrigated land. The water table was only about a foot below the surface over great areas where there had once been desert, he said, and as a result salt was being brought up from below and deposited on the earth as a clearly visible white layer. He had driven from Karachi to Lahore and seen mile after mile of land made useless by the salt crust. The Government had sought the help of the Americans in trying to get rid of the salt by dissolving it and by flooding and pumping off the brine into the canals. A major effort along these lines would be made next year. The Government had recently begun to try to make hospital and other social welfare services available to the mass of the people. The hospitals, for example, were well run, but their charges, although very moderate by Western standards, were still more than many Pakistanis could afford. Mr Borthwick's next job is as adviser on health and safety measures connected with a one megawatt “swimming pool” type nuclear reactor, being built by an American firm tor the University of the Philippines just outside Manila.