Tamil Nadu is using robots to serve medicines to COVID-19 patients in an attempt to reduce the infection risk for nurses. Tamil Nadu Health Minister C. Vijayabaskar on Friday visited the Stanley Hospital and checked the functions of 'robotic nurses' deployed in corona wards.
He said the robotic nurses can serve food and medicine to COVID-19 patients. This will limit the direct contact of doctors/nurses have with the patients and reduce the risk of infection. Similarly, some hospitals in the state had used drones to disinfect their buildings on a pilot basis. Meanwhile, Chennai police also used drones to make announcements to the public on the measures to be followed to safeguard against coronavirus infection.
Earlier this month, a field hospital staffed with 14 robots opened in the Hongshan Sports Center in China's Wuhan where the pandemic began. The robots, supplied by Beijing-based robotics company CloudMinds, could clean and disinfect, deliver medicine to patients and measure their temperature.
As per reports, in Jaipur, the Sawai Man Singh Government Hospital is conducting a series of trials on a humanoid robot to check if it can be pressed into service for delivering medicines and food to the coronavirus patients. A Kerala-based startup, Asimov Robotics, has developed a three-wheeled robot that it says can be used to assist patients in isolation wards.
*Edited from an IANS report