Health Ministry Medical Equipment director Dr Ebrahim Yaqoob said devices not designed for use in hospitals were interfering with life-saving machines and causing inaccurate readings.

He told the Gulf Daily News, our sister publication, that doctors at Salmaniya Medical Complex, who automatically carry pagers, were most to blame for problem as well as visitors who do not switch off their mobile phones.

'This is a serious problem which we are trying to deal with,' said Dr Yaqoob.

'The SMC does not have an in-built radio frequency shielding system and setting up one now will be extremely expensive.'

Dr Yaqoob said while Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) rooms and x-ray facilities were designed to withstand such devices, the rest of the SMC was not.

'The Intensive Care units (ICU), the critical Cardiac Care Unit (CCU) and some of the wards which have patients who are dependent of life-saving machines like pacemakers and ventilators are the ones at the most risk,' he said.

'Studies the world over have revealed that such devices can be switched off if there are radio frequency devices within their vicinity or even lead to wrong and distorted readings.'

Dr Yaqoob said only 'medical grade' pagers should be used in the hospital but that was not happening in the hospital.

'There are other technologies available, which are also not being used in the hospital,' he said.

However, Dr Yacoob said the new King Hamad Hospital, which is in the pipeline is expected to use the latest technology to avoid such problems.

He said it is not uncommon for patients' relatives to take in switched on mobile telephones.

'They even get the patients to speak to other relatives, not knowing that they could be seriously endangering their lives,' Dr Yaqoob warned.

'We try and prevent this as much as we can but are apparently not reaching anywhere.'

Dr Yaqoob said any sort of communication device, including laptops with audio and video capabilities are potential hazards. 'But we find these all over the hospital,' he said.

Dr Yaqoob backed the findings of a recent study in the Netherlands which claimed that Radio Frequency Identification Devices (RFIDs), being used in hospitals to identify patients and track medical supplies, were interfering with pacemakers and ventilators.

'The use of RIFD's in Bahrain is not very common as yet but these are used and this is increasing all the time,' he said. 'We have to try and think of other ways and other safe technologies.'

Researchers at Amsterdam University tested a total of 41 medical devices such as ventilators, syringe pumps, dialysis machines, and pacemakers, in 17 categories from 22 manufacturers.

They found that in 123 tests (three per medical device), RFIDs induced 34 incidents.

The survey, published in the June edition of the Journal of the American Medical Association, found of those 22 were classified as hazardous, two as significant, and 10 as minor.-