A tribal woman died during childbirth while being carried to the ambulance pickup point from a remote village in Gujarat’s Chhota Udepur district.
Though Gujarat is often branded as a model state, the village still doesn’t have a motorable road and people have to carry patients, even during emergencies, on makeshift stretchers to reach the main road where ambulance in available.
Kishan Bhil’s pregnant wife Kavita began having labour contractions at 5 in the morning. Villagers of Baskariya Faliya gathered to help carry her on a cloth stretcher. They were to cover a distance of five kilometres to reach the pick-up point where 108 ambulance service could arrive and take her to a primary healthcare centre about 25 km away for delivery.
But they had covered just a kilometre on the rocky terrain when Kavita went into labour, delivered a baby girl, and breathed her last. The body was brought back to her home on the cloth stretcher for final rites.
As Kishan remained inconsolable, his relative Jamsinh Rathwa said, “For several years, we have been requesting the government to construct a road in the village so that it is easier to access the first ambulance service.”
“But there has been no development. There is no health facility available nearby, and even the power supply is erratic. Since we are located in a remote village, we are forgotten and not considered as humans. Had the road been constructed, we would not have lost a family member,” he added.
The incident has left the villagers agitated about the delay in constructing the road that could ensure health services to arrive at the doorstep of locals.
Villagers say that this is not the first case. It has been five years since the first tender was issued by the administration to construct the road. But out of the approximately seven kilometres, they have constructed only three kilometres… People have to carry patients in makeshift cloth stretchers in order to reach the point where an ambulance can arrive. In case of such emergencies, there is no time and the walk is precarious. Three other women, before Kavita, have also met a similar fate.
When contacted, BJP MP Jashu Rathwa said that even as the state government, led by his party, aimed to “lay carpeted roads in every corner”, it was not possible in challenging terrains like Turkheda.
“The incident is tragic and we are indeed pained by the news… However, in remote areas of the tribal district in my constituency, walking about three or four kilometres is a usual. It is not to say that the roads should not be built… The BJP government is committed to laying carpeted roads in every corner but these terrains are challenging as the villages are scattered and in mountainous areas. However, I have checked and there is a tender in place for this particular faliya (lane) in the village and it will be constructed shortly,” he said.
SD Goklani, In-charge District Development Officer of Chhota Udepur, said the government had received a proposal to construct the road. “We received information that a woman from the Baskariya Faliya of Turkheda village died on the way after developing labour pain… The village is located in a hilly terrain and there a proposal has been received to construct a 7 km road at a cost of Rs 11 crore… The work on it is expected to begin soon,” he added.
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