Intensive-care specialists at Tygerberg Hospital have a new infection-resistant ‘colleague’ helping them to undertake ward rounds for Covid-19 patients.

“Quintin” – as ‘he’ is called – is a Double Robotic ‘robot’ that has been employed to help specialists do ‘virtual’ ward rounds – even from home – if they are unable to be physically present.

Stellenbosch University Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences (FMHS) Professor of Pulmonology Coenie Koegelenberg started experimenting with options to perform virtual ward rounds in the intensive care unit (ICU) of Tygerberg Hospital shortly before South Africa’s lockdown, and is assured that ICU specialists can, indeed, run ward rounds remotely, using robots as tireless helpers that can’t get infected.

Tygerberg Hospital has a limited number of specialists in its general medical ICU at present.

“Between the specialists, we will share the workload of Covid-19 patients who end up in ICU. The odds of at least one or all of us falling ill are quite high, so we need to realistically plan for what could happen.

If any of the specialists gets the virus and are unable to physically go to work, we will be able to function remotely using the robot, from a phone or a laptop,” said Koegelenberg.

He added that using this device would enable the hospital to provide a service if skills sets were in short supply.

The ‘robot’ looks like a computer tablet and has two wheels, uses gyroscope and accelerometer sensors in its base and can be controlled with a desktop, tablet or smartphone.

It enables communication between patient and doctor through a microphone and a zoom function and can relay vital signs of highly infectious patients.

The idea of using robots came about through “a combination of thoughts of many people”, Koegelenberg said. “We started wondering how we could help more people if we ourselves were to fall ill.”

His wife, Dr Suretha Kannenberg, a dermatologist, had told him about this device.

Robots have also been used in Italy, where the pandemic has claimed many lives, including those of doctors.