Equipment innovated by ESIC docs inaugurated

Products include Innovative Portable Point of Care RT-PCR machine, remote health monitors, and COVID safe incubators

Union Minister of State for Home Affairs Kishan Reddy inaugurating the new equipment at ESIC Medical College in Sanath Nagar, Hyderabad, on Saturday.

Medical equipment that were innovated by doctors of ESIC Medical College at Sanathnagar, in collaboration with government and private organisations, were inaugurated by Union Minister of State for Home Affairs G. Kishan Reddy on Saturday morning.

The products include Innovative Portable Point of Care RT-PCR machine, remote health monitoring system, and COVID safe incubators for newborns.

Doctors and staff at the hospital have been attending to COVID patients since March. Simultaneously, some of them have worked on the products. From March to October, 2,688 In-Patients with COVID-19, and 11,996 patients with the infectious disease had consulted the doctors at the ESIC Super Speciality Hospital.

Portable

Usually, swab samples collected to detect coronavirus, are examined in laboratories. The ‘Innovative Portable Point of Care RT-PCR’ machine can be carried anywhere such as remote villages. Rather than collecting samples from faraway places and taking them to the lab, they can be tested at the spot. This was developed by ESIC in collaboration with a private firm.

Another product that was indigenously developed are ‘COVID safe incubators for newborn babies’ by modifying existing incubators.

“Regular incubators are routinely used for newborn babies to manage jaundice and other diseases. During the pandemic, two variants of incubators were developed, positive pressure and negative pressure incubators. Positive pressure incubators shield the healthy, COVID-19 negative newborn babies from the virus infected external environment by using HEPA filters. Negative pressure incubators will prevent transmission from the COVID-19 positive newborn babies to the external environment,” as per a press release. This was developed at the super speciality hospital.

Mr. Kishan Reddy also inaugurated round-the-clock in-house dialysis service with 50 beds. Around 600 patients with kidney failure who needed dialysis were attached to the hospital. Earlier, they were referred to private hospitals. With the in-house dialysis service, In-Patients at the hospital will be treated there itself.

Union Minister for Labour and Employment Santhosh Kumar Gangwar participated in the inauguration virtually. Dean of ESIC Medical College M. Srinivas and others were present at the programme.