Chandigarh: If all goes well, PGI‘s telemedicine department will soon begin using drones for organ transport, as well as delivering medicines in the remote and difficult terrain of Himachal Pradesh. This will remove the obligation to transport recovered organs within a 20km radius and the need for a green corridor.
The air radius of 20kms is equivalent to 50kms on the road. “Our health minister and the prime minister are keen to implement this as the country is working on developing indigenous drones. It will definitely reduce the time it takes from organ harvesting to transplantation,” said PGI Director Professor Vivek Lal.
The Union ministry of health and family welfare has been deliberating with institutes like PGI, AIIMS Rishikesh and AIIMS, New Delhi to plan proposals on the use of drones in healthcare, which is being drafted by PGI.
“We have been the first in the country to use these UAVs for the delivery of TB drugs from Rishikesh to New Tehri in Uttrakhand. The air distance, which takes four to five hours by road, was covered in less than 30 minutes,” said Professor Meenu Singh, CEO of AIIMS Rishikesh.
Last year, Union Highways and Road Transport Minister Nitin Gadkari unveiled the first drone prototype for health services for organ transport. The sources said that recently, the Union Ministry of Health and Family Welfare held a meeting with PGI experts from the telemedicine department to work on the proposal.
“A box with the required temperature control can be connected to the drone, whose flight tracking can be done in real time. There are heavy air traffic constraints in places like Chandigarh and Delhi, which will be addressed,” a ministry official said.
According to the DGHS, there is a gap between the availability of organs and those that need transplantation. Most are lost due to the heavy flow of traffic and the distances involved. It is estimated that 1.8 lakh people suffer from kidney failure every year, but the number of kidney transplants performed in India is only about 6,000. Also, about 25,000 to 30,000 liver transplants are needed annually in India, but only about 1,500 are done. In the case of cornea, about 25,000 transplants are done every year against a 1 lakh requirement.
