SRIKAKULAM: A pregnant tribal woman was carried in a makeshift stretcher (in local parlance Doli) all the way to get a medical convoy (ambulance). However, she gave birth to a baby boy in the hilly area on the way.
The incident took place near Guda village under Kerasingi Panchayat of Meliaputti Mandal in Srikakulam district on Sunday.
The incident once again exposed the absence of pucca roads to the remote tribal hamlets of north coastal Andhra Pradesh comprising Vizag, Vizianagaram and Srikakulam districts which continues to be a major problem for the people in the hilly areas. They have to carry pregnant women in "dolis" over long distances to reach the nearest road point, which could be reached by an ambulance.
The pregnant lady Ch Nirmala from Guda village suffered labour pains on Sunday and as there is no proper road to her village there is no scope for the two-wheelers and four-wheelers to reach the village to shift her to hospital.
The woman was carried in a makeshift doli to reach the road point Parasurampuram to reach the government hospital at Meliaputti in Srikakulam district.
On the way to reach Parasurampuram, Nirmala gave birth to a baby boy in the hilly area. Later, the infant and the mother were shifted to Meliaputti hospital in an ambulance from Parasurampuram. After that the woman and infant were shifted to Government Hospital at Pathapatnam, where the condition of both of them is said to be stable.
Not only four-wheelers but also two-wheelers couldn’t travel on the hilly and slippery pathway. Owing to lack of road connectivity to our villages, those faced with a medical emergency have no other option than to carry the patients like bundles, said Nirmala’s brother Raju.
Raju said that it is not easy to shift the pregnant women in a makeshift stretcher through the hilly terrain. The officials have been ignoring our pleas and they can understand our problem (lack of road connectivity) once they face the problem, he added.
This is not the first time that a pregnant woman or ill-man being carried in a doli in North Andhra Pradesh. Several such incidents were reported in the past one year.
