Rayagada: Incidents depicting neglected condition of health care services in backward areas of the state surface every now and then. In one such instance a pregnant woman suffering from labour pain was helped on a stretcher by four men who carried her on their shoulders for nearly five kilometres after being unable to fetch an ambulance in Kalyansinghpur area here on Monday.
There are no pucca roads to Sajja village of Sikarpai block and so the woman had to be taken on a stretcher since vehicles cannot ply on the muddy kaccha routes. Besides what is more serious is that the pregnant woman was carried by the men across the Nagabali river with waist deep water and all the way for five kilometres on the potholed road.
Thereafter a mobile health vehicle picked the woman up to the nearby community health centre and there she delivered a baby. Both the mother and her baby are said to be in healthy condition.
Meanwhile, when asked about the incident, Kalyansinghpur assistant engineer Pradip Kumar Behera assured that an action plan is being lined up to construct pucca road in the upcoming financial year.
“We don’t have any communication facilities along the river so we are planning to construct a road between Kotlapadu and Majhiguda in the next financial year,” Behera told OTV.
Meanwhile, in another similar incident today a pregnant woman delivered her baby on office premises of Padapadar panchayat under Narayanpatna block in Koraput district today after the ambulance failed to arrive, sources said.
The woman who was suffering from labour pain was shifted to the panchayat office in the wee hours today and her kin called for a 102 ambulance but when it failed to turn up, the hapless woman had to deliver her baby on the premises itself.
Meanwhile, Health Minister Pratap Jena has ordered probe into both the incidents.