Patna girl builds Medi-Robo to act as a bridge between doctors and Covid patients

PATNA:  A 22-year-old Patna-born girl, Akanksha Kumari, has built a unique medical robot to help healthcare professionals and paramedic staff in treating Covid patients and others while stationed at a safe distance. Akanksha was helped by her father Yogesh, a hockey player, in developing and designing ‘Medi-Robo’. “My father arranged the hardware while I worked on the software and other features,” she says. The two started working on the contraption during last year’s lockdown.

Akanksha says Medi-Robo can help both, the healthcare professionals providing treatment to patients of highly infectious disease such as Covid- 19 as well as the paramedic staff in examining patients safely. She is an undergraduate student of electronics engineering from BIT Durg in Chhattisgarh. “I am deeply moved by the deaths of so many doctors while treating Covid patients.

Medi-Robo has been built to act as a bridge between doctors and Covid and other patients of infectious diseases,” she said, adding the equipment cost an investment of Rs 1 lakh. She put up a demonstration before Union IT and Law minister Ravi Shankar Prasad. She says she has applied for the patent, but wants both the state and the Central governments to allow health workers to use Medi-Robo, which enables doctors to examine the basic parameters of the patients from a safe distance along with real-time data.

Medi-Robo was tested at Patna’s three private hospitals, where it showed satisfactory results. It has been equipped with basic features for facilitating transportation of medicines, food, water, oxygen and other equipment. It also has a 360-degree high-resolution night vision surveillance camera. Its special digital features include enabling a doctor and paramedic staff to measure the oxygen level, BP, body temperature, sugar level, and the condition of heart & lungs among others.