BMJ 2008;336:1265 (7 June), doi:10.1136/bmj.39601.602512.DB
News
Source of surgical instruments should be checked, BMA says
Deborah Cohen
1 BMJ
| The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below. |
Doctors should encourage their hospitals or practices to ensure that the surgical instruments they purchase are "ethically procured," a BMA report has said.
Each month the NHS buys millions of pounds’ worth of surgical instruments, with a considerable majority manufactured in Sialkot, Pakistan. Each year 100 million surgical instruments are produced in Sialkot, with a product range of more than 10 000 items worth about $191m (£98m; 
124m).
But working conditions in factories are "unhealthy, unsafe, and unfair," with exposure to toxic and corrosive chemicals, metal dust, noise, and dangerous machinery on the list of health and safety problems, the report says. It also says that some sections of the industry use child labour and that although efforts have been made to improve conditions, further change is needed.
Despite most surgical instruments being manufactured in Sialkot, they are usually exported through companies such as those in Germany and the United
CiteULike 
Complore 
Connotea 
Del.icio.us 
Digg 
Reddit 
Technorati What's this?
This article
- Full text
- Respond to this article
- Alert me when this article is cited
- Alert me when responses are posted
- Alert me when a correction is posted
Services
- Email this article to a friend
- Find similar articles in BMJ
- Find similar articles in PubMed
- Add article to my folders
- Download to citation manager
- Request Permissions
Google Scholar
PubMed
Related content
Bookmark with
Tools
Services
Rapid responses for this article
There are no rapid responses for this article.Most read last week
Student BMJ
Risk of surgery for inflammatory bowel disease: record linkage studies
What can you learn from this BMJ paper? Read Leanne Tite's Paper+
