COVID-19 patients, undergoing treatment at the Divisional Railway Hospital in the city, are being served by a robot for nearly two weeks now. The robot is serving the hospital staff and assisting them in providing medicines and food to the patients.
The ‘MeD robot’ fabricated by Diesel Loco Shed (DLS), Visakhapatnam, rules out the need for direct contact between the patient and healthcare givers. It is particularly useful in the pandemic situation, which poses a risk to the care givers in attending to patients.
Now, the DLS, Visakhapatnam, has fabricated a second robot for use at the Railway Central Hospital at Bhubaneswar. “We have added additional features like an ‘auto thermal scanner’, which records the temperature of the patient, when he/she puts out his/her hand and an UV Sanitising Box for the use of health care givers like nurses, who can sanitise their personal belongings at the end of the day, on completion of their duty,” Santosh Kumar Patro, Senior Divisional Mechanical Engineer (Diesel), DLS, Visakhapatnam, told The Hindu on Tuesday.
“The first robot was built at a cost of ₹32,000 and this one costs ₹42,000 as some additional features were incorporated. Even papers can be sanitised by this robot. A third robot will be built with additional features to replace the existing one at the divisional hospital in the city. The existing one would be sent to some other railway hospital over East Coast Railway,” he says.
These robots give the much needed relief to doctors, nurses and other medical staff to stay away from the risks of contracting the virus. The existing robot at the divisional hospital is operated through a unique mobile app that has been developed as part of the innovation, supported by the WiFi facility. It supports sensor-based features, which are capable of reading the patients’ body temperature and transmit the same for display on the mobile phone. In case of any abnormal high-temperature reading, the robot is capable of raising an alarm so as to alert the hospital staff, attending to the patients.
The first robot was handed over to the Divisional Railway Hospital by Chetan Kumar Shrivastava, Divisional Railway Manager, Waltair, two weeks ago. The second robot is on its way to Bhubaneswar.
