Meghalaya Is The First State In India To Start Sending Out Medications Through Drones
Update: 2022-12-06 22:43 IST
Meghalaya Is The First State In India To Start Sending Out Medications Through Drones
The inhabitants of Meghalaya's West Garo Hills district gazed up and cheered when the strange bird whirred into Pedaldoba on Monday. After a 40-minute sortie from Jengjal, 68 km away, the alien, an unmanned aerial vehicle, arrived bearing medicines for the neighbourhood primary health centre (PHC).
Chesrang Momin felt a great deal of relief. He frequently had to travel 101 miles to Tura, the district's administrative centre, to pick up his father's blood pressure medications. The Jengjal Sub-divisional Hospital in the district features a drone station that ensures healthcare delivery even in the remote regions of the lush but challenging Garo Hills.
Due to floods, landslides, rough terrain, and a poor road network infrastructure, the state's public health supply chain has logistical challenges. Therefore, it is quite challenging to guarantee that healthcare supplies get to the difficult-to-reach health centres. The drone service, which is funded by the World Bank, is a collaborative project of the Meghalaya Health Systems Strengthening Project and the startup Techeagle. Anshu Abhishek, a co-founder of Techeagle, asserted that this is Asia's first drone station dedicated solely to the delivery of healthcare systems.
According to him, the flight's entire course—from takeoff to delivery and return to base—is predetermined and GPS-based. The drone can carry between three and five kilogrammes of payload, according to Ramkumar S, Additional Secretary of Health and Family Welfare.
Dr. Denyl Joshua of the Jengjal Sub-divisional Hospital, which boasts a cutting-edge lab, stated that the drones will help transport diagnostic samples and blood units from remote places for testing. Furthermore, one of the most isolated regions of the West Garo Hills is the Pedaldoba PHC, which is situated on the Assam-Meghalaya boundary. Five of its health sub-centers were essentially inaccessible until last year.