Coronavirus: Cleaner uses lunch break to invent automatic sanitiser dispensers in UAE

A housekeeping staff at a Covid testing laboratory in Ajman has invented foot paddle and automated sanitiser dispensers.

Indian expatriate Hamsa, 43, works as a cleaner at the central laboratory of Thumbay Labs (run by the Thumbay Group) in Ajman, where samples are tested for Covid-19.

Noticing that all sanitiser dispensers in the laboratories were push dispensers, Hamsa was keen on finding a way where frontliners could avoid touching the sanitiser bottle/ dispenser to minimise infection.

"I could see all our lab technicians and frontline doctors touch the sanitiser bottles or dispensers again and again to use the sanitiser. In order to reduce their risk levels of the virus transmission, I wanted to make a contactless dispenser without incurring much expenses," Hamsa said.

A science enthusiast who dropped out of school after grade 10 as his family couldn't afford education, Hamsa initially made a foot-pedal operated sanitiser dispenser, where one simply had to press a paddle attached to a dispenser to use it.

"Although I made the foot paddle sanitiser first, I felt that it might not be convenient for all to use so I decided to make an automated one. This idea of automated sanitiser dispenser came from observing sensor-operated doors of lecture rooms. I thought why not try to model something based on that idea. I bought a sensor from an electronic shop, found the motor from a fish tank in the office premises and created a model to see if it worked and it did," Hamsa told Khaleej Times.

Hamsa would squeeze out time from his one hour break and work on creating different models . "Since I was pressed for time, I decided to use my lunch break more judiciously. I would finish my lunch and prayers in 30 minutes and spent the remaining time working on the mechanism. It took me a week to create these two models of sanitiser dispensers.

Elaborating on how he constructed the dispenser, Hamsa said: "I created these dispensers from mostly scrap. For the sensor-type dispenser, the only things I purchased was a sensor, a small transistor and a board, which cost around Dh10. I sourced the wood, motor and wires from scrap lying around the GMU campus, where the central lab is located. I also did some carpentry work and made a box out of some unused wood scraps and painted and polished it to give it a neat look."

The management of Thumbay Labs was so pleased with Hamsa's inventions that they at once installed the two kinds of dispensers at their Covid-19 testing lab and also felicitated him at a small ceremony they organised to recognise his efforts and give him a special award.