Special course

Press, 26 November 1980, Page 24

Special course

PA Wellington The Central Institute of Technology has completed a special course in medical engineering for Pacific Basin students on behalf of the World Health Organisation and the New Zealand Government. One of only three of its kind in the world — the other two are in Africa — .the 18-month full-time course was designed to provide technicians from developing countries with skills in maintaining a wide range of electronic and mechanical .hospital equipment, according to a supnlied press release. The 15 graduates are about to return to their homes in the Solomon Islands, Tonga, Fiji, the Cook Islands, Guam, the Trust Territories of the Pacific Islands, Singapore, the Philippines, America Samoa and Malaysia. World Health has planned this as the first of several steps “to

remedy a deep-seated problem in the installation and repair of sophisticated and expensive aid-pro-gramme equipment, much of which previously had rhort-lived usefulness, or was in some cases not even used because of lack of local servicing expertise,” the statement said. Representatives of the ’organisation will later visit graduates in their home countries to assess and assist in their progress. Another course of similar duration and content is being mounted at the institute next year for fresh intakes of students, probably including some New Zealanders. The Principal of the institute, Mr J. Bateman,, has said that, as a measure of the imp* tance placed on the project, it was one of few such commitments formally entered into by World Health with individual member governments,