KARACHI               -        Pakistan Medical Association (PMA) taking strong exception to fire out break at National Institute of Child Health (NICH), causing loss of a precious life, has strongly recommended mandatory provision for emergency drills at hospitals scattered across the country.

Secretary General, PMA - Centre, Dr. SM. Qaiser Sajjad here on Friday said NICH incident was not just a single instance of its sort, but is registered at different facilities.

“It is therefore extremely important that hospital staff are well trained to deal with such situations,” he said adding that mock exercise must be performed after every three months in each hospital of the hospitals.

The PMA official further sought regular maintenance of the electrical system emphasizing that obsolete or faulty functional in many of the old hospitals must also be replaced.      “This ought to be necessarily complimented by regular maintenance of the medical equipments and machinery for proper functioning,” he said.

Dr. Qaiser Sajjad said PMA strongly believes that the administration of public and private hospitals should look into the matter seriously, so that such incidents may not occur again.