Blood-delivering drones may soon service Canada's remote north

Flying robots with blood! Just what we need! Actually, remote regions of Canada could in fact benefit from such a thing. In towns such as Northern Ontario's Moosonee and Moose Factory, the delivery of emergency supplies can be lengthy and difficult. In the winter, boat access to these communities is compromised by the frozen Moose River and unstable ice makes travel by truck or snowmobile dangerous. Currently, when faced with these limitations, the delivery of emergency materials is done by helicopter, which is expensive and can take an hour to dispatch. Drone delivery companies like Vaughan Ontario's Drone Delivery Canada and Silicon Valley-based robotics company, Zipline, could be a much faster and cheaper alternative.

This past November, Drone Delivery Canada conducted its first flight tests to Moosonee and Moose Factory and the results were successful. In a video released following these flight tests, CEO Tony Di Benedetto commented, "The goal really was to integrate into the community, show them our technology, show them how the technology can help them." Moose Cree First Nations Director of Economic Development, Stan Kapashesit, said "If the drone can play a part in insuring the fast efficient delivery of emergency materials or services, then it saves a life."

When it comes to the delivery of time-sensitive medical supplies, blood is of key importance. If a patient in remote Canada is in need of a blood transfusion, the nearest medical facility would need fast access to all blood types. If, however, a medical facility has a large stock of blood, much of it may go unused and spoil, wasting resources that could have been used elsewhere. To address these issues, Zipline has created a drone blood delivery system that has been operating since October 2016. After a year and a half of servicing Rwanda, Zipline states that on-demand distribution of blood has decreased such waste by 95 per cent. Zipline is tentatively slated to bring their tech to Canada.

While Amazon and Google have been showboating their own proposed delivery drones with such high-priority tasks as delivering burritos to rural Australians, companies like Drone Delivery Canada and Zipline have more noble ambitions. "We don't think that the promise of this technology over the next five years is to deliver pizza and tennis shoes to your backyard— we think the promise of this technology is to provide universal access to healthcare for every human on the planet." says Zipline CEO Keller Rinaudo in an interview with Spectrum.

While the absolute promise of these blood-delivering drones operating in Canada still remains in the works, progress is being made. Since their successful flight tests in November, Transport Canada has issued Drone Delivery Canada a Compliant UAV Operator Special Flight Operations Certificate, which allows their unmanned aircrafts to fly beyond line-of-sight. Upon following up with Zipline on any development or discussion with Canada's medical community, spokesperson Justin Hamilton told us that they are "Still in conversation" and "it remains a hope that we could make something work (in Northern Canada) in the near future."

Adam Pateman is a comedian, writer, and editor based out of Vancouver.