Helping Premature Babies
EMERITUS Professor John Grant-Thomson, who died aged 82 on September 13 this year, was one of the foremost researchers at the University of Southern Queensland.
He was working in the Faculty of Engineering and Surveying in 1992, and one of his achievements was to design and develop a device which could safely transfer premature babies in road ambulances, helicopters and fixed wing aircraft.
This year (2021) the Neocot Mansell Infant Retrieval Systems will transport more than 4000 premature babies across Australia, as well as in Scandinavia. There are 25 units in Sweden and 10 in Norway.
The first baby to use the Neocot device, Lachlan Erhart, celebrated his 21st birthday in February 2021, with Professor Grant-Thomson attending the event in Brisbane.
The Professor said he was first approached by two directors of neonatology, Dr David Cartwright from the Royal Brisbane Hospital and Dr David Tudehope from the Mater Hospital.
They were pioneering the concept of transferring premature or critically ill new-born infants from their place of birth to major hospitals across the country to receive specialist care.
Professor Grant-Thomson asked his engineering students at the time if anyone was interested in working on the project and two students, Adrian Douglas and John Hilton, put up their hands and they set about making a prototype device.
Not long afterwards the Neocot, an intensive care capsule on wheels was conceived in 1998.
Professor Grant-Thomson said not many people were aware such a world-leading piece of medical equipment was manufactured in Toowoomba.
“Building such a device requires special skills, funding and a specialised place to work so not long after we began creating the Neocots, I approached Mr Neil Mansell of Neil Mansell Transport, who allowed his workshops and funding to allow the project to get under way,” he said.
The Neocot was later manufactured by Tim Wheeler’s company, BAC Technologies with USQ graduate electrical engineers, Anthony Vadalma and Paul Priebbenow, in charge of the project.
The Neocots, which are used for transporting premature babies, are all with LifeFlight’s air ambulance jets.
Emeritus Professor GrantThomson is part of a long list of outstanding researchers associated with USQ.
They include a man who pioneered robots, including ones that can clean windows on the outside of tall buildings; the researcher who specialised in finding an antidote for funnel-web spider bites; the engineer who spent his holidays helping villagers in Asia get clean water; an expert in radio who travelled the South Pacific helping small nations improve radio services; and an arts lecturer who recorded songs of Pacific nations. There are many other researchers and their details are in the building containing the USQ Archives.
DON TALBOT, Toowoomba