How drones could transform healthcare in remote areas
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This BBC podcast is supported by ads outside the UK. World of Secrets is where untold stories are exposed. And in this new series, we investigate the dark side of the wellness industry, following the story of a woman who joined a yoga school only to uncover a world she never expected. I feel that I have no other choice. The only thing I can do is to speak about this. Where the hope of spiritual breakthroughs leaves people vulnerable to exploitation...

You just get sucked in so gradually and it's done so skillfully that you don't realise.

Hello and welcome back to this episode of What In The World from the BBC World Service. I'm Hannah Gelbart. Now, if you have a headache and you live in a big city, you can probably pop down to the local pharmacy and buy something to ease the pain. The same goes if you've got allergies, if you've had a scrape or a bad cough.

As you can imagine, it's not like that all over the world, particularly in remote communities. There are places where it can be extremely difficult for health workers to provide medicine quickly and efficiently for those who get sick. But now could be a solution.

Today, we're looking at how drones are being trialled as a way to improve healthcare for people in remote places, whether that's up a mountain or on a hard-to-reach island. We're going to be focusing on the Philippines, a country that has more than 7,000 islands, and delivering medical supplies there can be extremely challenging.

As I mentioned, the Philippines is made up of thousands of islands. Many of them are mountainous and they have difficult terrains. There are recurring natural disasters like typhoons, earthquakes and mudslides. And that means that already isolated communities are frequently cut off entirely. So people can't access basic health care or essential medication. I have been chatting to Heidi Sampang. She is a medical doctor and the director of Philippines Flying Labs.

She told us a bit more about how remote communities are affected by these issues. So the Philippines is actually in the top one in the disaster risk index just because of these calamities, volcanoes, landslides. We have the diverse terrain.

We have very isolated communities. We have natural and man-made disasters. And then, of course, we have shortage of healthcare workers and supplies just because of the diverse, unique topography of the country. So there are no roads, there are no boats that can go to these communities regularly.

Unfortunately for them, dying at a young age is very natural. Their life expectancy is shorter. You have unvaccinated kids.

So they die early from vaccine-preventable illnesses such as pneumonia. And then, of course, the older people, they have heart attack, they die at stroke, which is unfortunate because the life expectancy globally has been improving, especially in the urban areas. But to see these people dying at younger age, poorer health outcomes because of lack of access is really not right. Given all of these,

Challenges. Let's talk about the use of drones now. What gave you the idea to use drones to deliver medical supplies to these people, these communities? I've heard lots of stories of mothers dying because of bleeding a lot after they've given birth because one, they didn't get access to the medicine to stop the bleeding.

or they didn't get the blood supply that they needed for their bleeding. And then they have children dying from diarrhea still universal because they don't have access to oral rehydration fluid or IV fluid. How can we

make medicines available in these remote areas, even without the normal roads. So I was thinking probably the fastest way to deliver these medicines is to fly them. And during that time, the drone space was really new. Eventually, the technology caught up with the needs that we had. So we were able to use drones to deliver medicines in remote islands and remote communities here in the Philippines.

And what did you deliver to those communities? So in 2022, we were able to deliver in two scenarios, in a mountainous community and in an island community. Because of the lack of access to during the, like a cold storage, because during that time that was COVID, it's the peak of COVID. So some people in these remote areas are not getting the mRNA vaccines. So we designed a cargo box.

that can maintain the ultra-cold requirement of those vaccines. So aside from regular medicine, we were able to deliver mRNA vaccines using the special cargo box. And then we were able to test water samples as well and some TB samples and some basic supplies like

For instance, the nurses said, oh, we forgot some masks. So now with the drone, we were able to get the mask and the gloves that they needed right away. What kind of drones are you using? Because I wanted technology to be more really accessible. It's an off-the-shelf drone, actually. So what we did was we hacked the system, put our own cargo system inside that drone, and then program it to be able to do cargo delivery with the cargo box on top.

What are some of the challenges that you have faced in using drones to deliver these medical supplies? Since we're going beyond visual line of sight, meaning the drone has to fly without the operator seeing the drone, we really need to have good drone pilots that are able to maneuver the drones

when the signal gets dropped. Unfortunately, data signals for phones are limited. So when the drone doesn't have that data connection, you have to control the drone by manually flying it. So if you don't have very experienced drone pilots, the drone can lose the drone and fly it in different directions. ♪

Heidi mentioned how important data signals are for drone operators because they need connectivity to navigate their drones safely. Well, there are some solutions to these connectivity issues, though they can be expensive. This is Patrick McKay. He's the data operations manager for the United Nations World Food Programme. It's been experimenting with drones to help deliver aid during humanitarian emergencies, often in remote areas.

When you're operating a drone in emergencies, we expect to have little or no connectivity. It's far more challenging. In an ideal world, you'll arrive with your flight areas pre-planned and pre-downloaded, so connectivity wouldn't be needed on site. And this is what we aim to do in most cases. But in some cases, like if you wanted to conduct search and rescue flights over a flooded area of unknown size, you wouldn't be able to do this. And in this case, we can actually fly the drone around the perimeter of the area we're interested in.

and that can form the boundary of a flight with the drone software creating the pattern to cover the areas inside of it. We also have ways of using drones to help us spread connections over large areas. For instance, when you arrive in an area that's been hit by a cyclone, you'll often see the salt towers in the area lying flat on the ground. And in this case, we can use a tethered drone. It's basically a drone with a very long extension cable as a portable tower to carry communications equipment. These drones can fly for days or even weeks without needing to land.

And with connectivity relying on line of sight, having the ability to fly in a 90 meter tall tower packed into a couple of suitcases can be a complete game changer in temporarily restoring connections.

Let's hear from Heidi again now. So how successful were the trials of delivering medicines by drone? So yeah, so we did two scenarios. One is in the mountainous area. Unfortunately, when we did the test flight, it was raining. The terrain was muddy. So we were using those motorcycle bikes. So it took us three hours to go through that mountainous area. But through the drone system, actually, we were able to deliver in seven minutes.

Even with the rain, does the weather present a challenge to drones as well? The rains during that time was lighter, so the drone was able to fly. But I think before we did the test flight, it was raining hard. So the roads were really sticky and actually our motorcycles fell several times. And that's the other challenge that the community health workers are facing because they're the ones delivering these supplies directly.

using these motorcyles so they get fractured and sprained just because of that perilous journey along the road. So yeah, definitely they were very happy. And in the island community,

Usually it will take one to two hours depending on the tide. So if there's no tide. And again, with the drone, it took seven minutes. We're seeing an increasing number of drones being used for all kinds of reasons. Amazon does deliveries with drones. There's talks of drone taxis coming not that fast.

far into the future. Your project, Using Drones, is locally run, it's locally operated. Do you think that's going to help it get more integrated into these cultures and communities who are so isolated?

Yeah, definitely. And we want to prevent inequity also in terms of using these medical innovations or these drones, for example, this AI technology. Because sometimes it's the people that can afford it that can enjoy the benefits from it. But hopefully, once we test the system locally operated, locally integrated, we can put it in our system. But unfortunately, the...

The government that we have in these remote communities, they don't have the money to purchase and to make this program sustainable. So what we're encountering right now is we have the technology, we have the end user, but of course, you have to find someone to invest in that technology so the people in the remote areas can benefit from it because sometimes there's that gap. Heidi, thank you so much for joining us on the podcast.

Thank you so much. Thank you for having me. Before we go, I just want to turn to the US for a quick update on President Trump. Following his inauguration yesterday, he signed an executive order to temporarily lift a ban on TikTok. We covered that on Monday's episode. And if you want to hear more details, please do check it out. It's called a very temporary RIP to American TikTok.

And if you'd like to hear what other executive orders Trump has passed since his return to office, do check out the BBC News website. That is it for today's episode. Thank you for listening. I'm Hannah Gelbart. This is What In The World from the BBC World Service. And we'll be back with another episode soon. See you then. Bye. Yoga is more than just exercise. It's the spiritual practice that millions swear by.

And in 2017, Miranda, a university tutor from London, joins a yoga school that promises profound transformation. It felt a really safe and welcoming space. After the yoga classes, I felt amazing. But soon, that calm, welcoming atmosphere leads to something far darker, a journey that leads to allegations of grooming, trafficking and exploitation across international borders. ♪

I don't have my passport, I don't have my phone, I don't have my bank cards, I have nothing. The passport being taken, the being in a house and not feeling like they can leave.

You just get sucked in so gradually.

And it's done so skillfully that you don't realize. And it's like this, the secret that's there. I wanted to believe that, you know, that...

Whatever they were doing, even if it seemed gross to me, was for some spiritual reason that I couldn't yet understand. Revealing the hidden secrets of a global yoga network. I feel that I have no other choice. The only thing I can do is to speak about this and to put my reputation and everything else on the line. I want truth and justice.

and for other people to not be hurt, for things to be different in the future. To bring it into the light and almost alchemise some of that evil stuff that went on and take back the power. World of Secrets, Season 6, The Bad Guru. Listen wherever you get your podcasts.