Robots to deliver meds to Covid patients at Assam hospital

Guwahati: Now robots would deliver medicines and essential services to Covid-19 patients at a hospital in Assam, officials said here on Sunday.

The robots designed by the Guwahati-based Yantrabot Technologies Pvt Limited with remote controllable robotic vehicles would deliver food, medicines and other essential services to Covid-19 patients as well as patients with other extremely contagious diseases inside the isolation chambers of the quarantine facilities.

Assam Chief Minister Sarbananda Sonowal on Saturday handed over two robots to the Principal of Dibrugarh-based Assam Medical College and Hospital (AMCH), Sanjib Kakati, to use them for delivering food, medicines and essential services to Covid patients.

An official release said it is part of the Covid-19 infrastructure equipment grant sponsored by the Rotary Foundation of Rotary International, Rotary Club of Dibrugarh and Bangladesh’s Rotary Club of Dhaka Royal under the support of “Global Grant”.

Sonowal thanked co-founder Arunjyoti Borgohain of Yantrabot Technologies Pvt Limited for designing the robot. The Chief Minister said the two robots would have a huge role in rendering care to patients in the hospitals.

Meanwhile, in a first-of-its-kind in northeast India, a robot developed by young scientist Harjeet Nath from Tripura University was deployed in a government Covid Care Centre in May 2020 to deal with Covid patients.

Nath has made the robot from locally available material, including scrap. He has named it as ‘WARBOT’ to fight the war against the Covid-19 pandemic.

Nath’s aim was to assist the frontline health workers, including doctors, in taking care of the coronavirus patients from a distant place. The young scientist in July 2020 donated the robot to the Tripura Medical College and Dr B.R. Ambedkar Memorial Teaching Hospital.

The medical college had used the robot at the 250-bed Covid Care Centre in Hapania, on the outskirts of the capital city Agartala. Tripura Medical College Professor and in-charge of the Hapania Covid Care Centre, Shib Sekhar Datta, said the robot was useful to some extent.