Human Touch

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Stellenbosch Faculty of Medicine & Health Sciences

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Quintin the robot, who has been assisting physicians at Tygerberg Hospital’s Covid-19 Intensive Care Unit (ICU), is now also helping to put concerned family members in touch with ICU patients that have had to be isolated - and in some cases, allowing them to say goodbye for the very last time.
Quintin, a Double Robotics robot that looks like a computer tablet on wheels, has now been equipped to do video and voice calls using the freely available WhatsApp service, or regular phone calls, to which family members can dial in to ‘visit’ with patients in the Covid-19 ICU. Quintin can be remotely steered using an “app” and therefore hospital staff don’t have to physically enter the ward to position the robot, which reduces their risk of infection, saves on personal protective equipment (PPE) and frees up their time to focus on other tasks.
Enabling contact between patients and their families has been a “humanising process”, explains Dr Kerry Louw, a psychiatrist at Stellenbosch University’s Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences (FMHS) and Tygerberg Hospital.
She likens the experience of being a patient in an ICU to “a form of psychological anguish which involves a fear of death, unexpected pain and sensory deprivation as well as overstimulation”.
ICU patients are not only physically ill, but often also suffer psychologically because they are isolated from their families, are sleep deprived due to the constant beeping of machines, and experience no natural light or air movement. “Some patients stay in ICU for long periods of time, and it becomes really difficult for them,” Louw explains.
“It’s heart-warming to see the smiles once patients have connected with their families. It has made such a difference.
“For some families, the patient has not been awake while they communicate with them, but it has still been meaningful. We have been able to organise some end-of-life conversations where people can say goodbye. One family wanted to be present at the moment of passing and we enabled them to be there with the patient.”
Louw says the Department of Psychiatry was already providing individual and group support for healthcare staff working with Covid-19 patients when a colleague asked if they could help with patient family contact.
“Staff members from psychiatry moved into a little office at the ICU to be on site to support the ICU staff. We go in every day to be visible to the staff and to give psychological support to the patients.”
When Quintin is called to assist, he goes over to the patient on his wheels, and, Louw says, sometimes he stays with the patient for hours while the family ‘visits’ virtually.
“I always explain to the families beforehand what to expect and what it looks like to see someone who is intubated, as it can be a shock. Some families don’t want visual contact and prefer audio contact. We always check in with the patient to see how they are after engaging with their families. We also check in with the families, who can also be very emotional after they’ve connected with the patient.”
According to Prof Coenie Koegelenberg, an FMHS pulmonologist who also works in Tygerberg Hospital’s Covid-19 ICU, the idea of using Quintin in this capacity came about “because we didn’t expect the patients to be so aware, awake and anxious”.
“It is difficult for healthcare workers to provide psychological support through a mask and goggles as you look like an alien and it is difficult to hear what people are saying,” he says.
Koegelenberg originally sourced the services of Quintin to enable ICU specialists to do virtual ward rounds on Covid-19 patients when they are unable to be physically present. “The odds of at least one of us falling ill or having to go into self-isolation and being unable to physically go to work were quite high, so it was reassuring to know that we would be able to function remotely using the robot, from a phone or a laptop.”
As it happened, none of the ICU specialists have yet fallen ill but Quintin’s services as an intermediary between patients and their families have been indispensable.
Louw says connecting the family who wanted to be present when their relative passed away was memorable and moving.
“We were able to have Quintin present while the family sang and prayed with the patient as he died. It was very powerful,” Louw says.
“It has been a huge privilege to engage with patients and their families at such a vulnerable time in their lives. It is beautiful, but hard.”