Raman noticed that this design of cannula had other problems also attached with it. Often blood would clot in it, causing the patient enormous amount of pain every time medication was injected. Raman wanted to do something about it.

“It was then that I decided to contribute my bit to end patients’ distress in some way. I wanted to develop a cannula that was easy to use and also inexpensive,” says 35-year-old Raman, a Geology, Botany and Chemistry graduate from Lucknow University.

After years of working on various prototypes, he finally stumbled upon the solution: Instead of using hard plastic for the cannula’s valve, Raman decided to use a stretched circle of silicone, with a slit in the centre. “There are many advantages of this new design. For starters, the blood pressure isn’t enough to force the slit open, so blood doesn’t flow out. Secondly, since the blood never comes in contact with the air, it doesn’t clot,” he says with a smile. The ‘Intralock IV Cannula’ as Raman calls his invention, lets the doctor easily inject the patient.

His inventions came from working for 12 years with various surgical instrument manufacturing units, says Raman.

Even though the invention had been completed, Raman’s journey hadn’t ended. “After much deliberation, I finally applied for the patent in 2005. No one in the whole world had come up with such a solution. I wanted people out there to know that there was an easy option available,” he says. But the Indian patent’s office took its own sweet time and after a wait of almost two years Raman recently was granted a patent on his cannula design.