She does not wear a mask, but she is helping save lives from coronavirus. Her name is Shams (Sun), the first robot nurse helping flesh-and-blood doctors and nurses care for coronavirus patients at Ain Shams University hospital.
Shams is the creation of students of the computers and information science department at Ain Shams University who hope the robot will reduce the risk of infection for nurses and doctors during the pandemic.
Named after the university, the robot nurse Shams, which took 10 months to be designed, has been recently unveiled.
Last month, President of Ain Shams University Mahmoud el-Matini and Dean of the Computers and Information Science Faculy at the university Nagwa Badr were there to see Shams in action for the first time.
“Shams speaks Arabic and can recognise patients’ and doctors’ faces. She knows her way around the hospital, can sterilise patient rooms and can upload patients’ health information into the hospital’s digital system,” el-Matini said in a phone interview with Sada el-Balad satellite channel talk show.
What is important is that Shams allows the hospital to limit the number of direct contact doctors and nurses have with patients, thus reducing the risk of infection, el-Matini said.
Designing Shams cost one million pounds and there are plans for more robots in the coming years for the university’s hospitals, el-Matini added.
“However, they will never replace the human factor, which is something that patients constantly rely on and we know how important it is for them,” he said.
Mohamed Atef, a graduate from the university’s computers and information sciences faculty, explained how the robotic nurse can reduce direct contact between health workers and infected patients.
“Shams has a touch screen monitor on the chest area and can perform several tasks,” Atef told The Egyptian Gazette.
“It conducts a patient’s initial diagnosis through questions and answers about temperature and symptoms,” said Atef, who took part in creating Shams.
Shams can take medicines from the pharmacy to the patients’ room, take blood samples from the patients’ to the lab and make video calls between patients and doctors,” he said.
“But still we have to explain to patients, especially the older ones, the aim and function of the robot so that they can adapt to it,” Atef added.
Robotic nurses have a great advantage: they never get tired. After their batteries are quickly recharged, they are back at work in the ward.
The idea of introducing robotic nurses came from engineer Mahmoud el-Komy, 28, whose Cira-03 robot can test for Covid-19, take patients’ temperatures, perform echocardiograms and take X-rays.
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