Madhya Pradesh: Woman in labour carried 5 km in sling to ambulance in Barwani

BARWANI: A tribal woman in labour had to endure the agony of being carried 5km in a makeshift sling to an ambulance on Thursday because there aren’t any roads to her village in

Barwani

district.

Thankfully, she gave birth to a healthy baby in Pansamel community health centre, around 80km from the Barwani district headquarters and barely 5km from the Maharashtra border.

This is the second time in Pansamel in the last four months that a pregnant woman had to be carried in a sling made of bedsheets and wooden poles.

Chaina Bai More

, a 20-year-old labourer, lives in Kanjapani, a remote village around 20km from Pansemal. She went into labour on Thursday and a local ASHA worker realised she needed immediate hospital care. She called for an ambulance but the villagers had to carry Chaina Bai to an area named

Lalvania

that the vehicle could reach.

The ambulance was waiting for the group there. Pansemal block medical officer Dr Arvind Kirade said Chaina Bai gave birth to a boy weighing 2.25kg at 3pm.

Due to absence of roads from Bhurwani to

Bokrata

in

Shioni Panchayat

of Pati block, pregnant women and the ailing have to be carried to waiting ambulances, villagers Babulal and Manohar Malviya said. Locals have been demanding roads for years but no one seems bothered, they say. Farmers have to carry their produce to the market on

donkeys

.

In July, a woman was taken to a waiting ambulance through an 8km jungle trail from Rajpura area.

Barwani collector

Shivraj Singh Verma

said he has identified 375 places that need roads. “All these areas come under the forest department. After getting NOC, most of the roads will be constructed under MGNREGA,” he assured. On September 18, on the other end of the state in Chhatarpur district, a pregnant woman died at childbirth because no ambulance could reach her village and even a tractor got stuck in the mud. Villagers helplessly watched her die.