Three-year research project to probe whether drones have role in remote NT health delivery
People living in remote Aboriginal communities could begin to receive critical health supplies by drone before the end of the year as part of a new research project in the Northern Territory.
Key points:
- The drones could fly health supplies to communities cut off during the wet season
- Researchers are hoping to start deliveries before the end of this year
- The drones will be not used to deliver COVID-19 vaccines as part of the trial
The three-year trial aims to find out if using drones to deliver loads of up to 25 kilograms as far as 250 kilometres away is a practical and cost-effective way to improve healthcare services for remote Territorians.
"It's the next step in medicine," Health Minister Natasha Fyles said.
NT Health will contribute $1.4 million over three years to the project, in partnership with Charles Darwin University and transport research centre iMove Australia.
The researchers said they would have to buy drones that could withstand the Territory's heat, humidity, wild thunderstorms and monsoonal rains.
"We have found that a lot of drones where the manufacturers considered they'd be flightworthy in the Territory have failed," Charles Darwin University's Dr Hamish Campbell said.
"[They were] overheating because of not just the hot temperature, but the humidity, and that'll be something that we'll have to try and solve in that first year."
Trial faces regulatory hurdles
Drone delivery of healthcare services has been successful in some other locations, including in African countries, but it has not been attempted in Australia yet.
The researchers will have to negotiate with the Civil Aviation and Safety Authority (CASA), and Defence, over the use of airspace, as well as other regulatory hurdles, including the unsupervised transport of medicines.
For that reason, the early focus will be on transporting non-prescription medical supplies and also pathology tests such as blood samples from remote communities back into regional centres.
"For a nurse in a remote clinic to be able to get some pathology results out quickly each day, as opposed to having to wait for a weekly plane for example … that gives the patient better care and might not have a significant cost imperative," Ms Fyles said.
And while the trial will consider whether drones could be used to transport health supplies that require cold storage, there is no suggestion drones will be involved in delivering COVID-19 vaccines to remote communities at this stage.
Hoping to fly by the end of the dry season
The researchers are yet to decide which drones they will buy, or how many, but they are hoping to have purchased them and recruited a pilot by the end of the upcoming dry season.
Dr Campbell said the early plan was to base the drones and a pilot in Jabiru, a town in Kakadu National Park 253 kilometres from Darwin, so the devices could then fly out to surrounding remote communities such Maningrida and Gunbalanya.
"We think that West Arnhem Land would be an ideal location in terms of airspace and benefits to communities," he said.
"A lot of those communities are cut off by the East Alligator River for quite a few months in the wet season."