Short of doctors, Karnataka set to deploy robots at Covid care units

BENGALURU: Karnataka is mulling introducing robots to monitor asymptomatic and mild Covid-19 cases at the 10,100-bed Covid Care Centre that is coming up at Bangalore International Exhibition Centre, in view of the shortage of doctors and other healthcare personnel to treat the patients.
The robot being considered for deployment is built on the model of telepresence.Originally from the US, it has been assembled in Karnataka. A demo was given on Wednesday. Dr CN Manjunath, nodal officer, lab and testing, Covid 19 taskforce, said the robots will be used to treat patients and can be remotely connected to the team of specialists.
"A demo will be given at Jayadeva Institute of Cardiovascular Sciences and Research on Thursday and the pilot project will also be taken up here. Each robot costs close to Rs 10-11 lakh. It's available for rent also. One robot could be used for 200 patients," said Dr Manjunath.
The robots are app-based, and consultants monitoring the patient can download it on their phones. The doctors can converse with the patients via the robots and keep track of the patient, he explained. The robots are expected to ease the doctors' burden by facilitating virtual rounds and thousands of patients can be managed with minimal human resource.