TIRUCHY: In order to protect the doctors and nurses from contracting the coronavirus while treating the patients, the district administration is mooting the idea of using robots to provide food and medicine to the isolated wards. Two robots were tested at the Mahatma Gandhi Memorial Government Hospital in Tiruchy on Sunday.
According to sources, the testing provided positive results and may soon be deployed at the hospital.
Two robots, 'Zafi' and 'Zafi Med' created by a group of Tiruchy Engineers were tested at the government hospital on Sunday in presence of District Collector S Sivarasu and Health officials.
The robots fitted with various features including cameras and wireless talking can help health officials in distributing food and medical supplies to patients at the isolation ward without being in direct contact with them. They can be operated through remote control.
Speaking to The New Indian Express, S Gurumurthy, engineer behind the invention, said, " The robot was initially created as an experiment to provide interactive education to students. Hearing information about health officials risk in contracting the novel virus, we decided to modify the robots a little bit. The robot 'Zafi' which can be operated from a distance of 250 meters can lift items up to 8 Kgs and interact directly with the patients. Using the robot, health officials can totally prevent contact with the patients."
While 'Zafi' was created a year ago, 'Zafi med' was created a couple of days ago just in keeping in mind the difficulty posed at the officials in providing masks and other facilities to the people kept under home quarantine.
"The 'Zafi med' can be operated from a distance of 1.5 km and can lift items up to 20 Kgs," added Gurumurthy, who is an Electronics Engineer. However, Gurumurthy clarified that Zafi Med is not equipped with the feature of wireless talking but fitted with a camera to fill the void.
Sources said that the engineer was asked to keep 10 robots on standby and would be intimated about the implementation soon.