Kerala: No ambulance, family carries pregnant woman For 7 km in bedsheet

Mangalore Today News Network

Kerala, Jun 07, 2018  :  A pregnant woman in Kerala was carried by her family in a bedsheet tied to poles for seven km on Tuesday as the nearest hospital didn’t send an ambulance saying there are no roads. In footage that is in wide circulation on social media, four men walk barefoot on what appears to be a slippery and rock-filled track along a river as they carry the woman.

 

The 27-year-old woman from Attapadi in Palakkad was in pain as she was carried for what seemed like hours on the makeshift "stretcher". Two more family members accompanied her.

The group even crossed the river in that state. They walked till they came to a point where they had arranged a private car to complete the rest of the journey to the hospital.

The woman delivered a baby girl barely moments after she reached the government tribal hospital at Kottathara.

The hospital claims that it was trying to arrange an ambulance but the family had already made its own arrangement.
 
Attapadi, which has a large number of tribal families, has been in the news in the past over infant deaths. Because of the absence of roads in what is among the most remote parts of Kerala, villagers often can’t access hospitals on time. Instead of roads, there are mud tracks where only jeeps can be driven.

Villagers complain that despite an assurance from the Congress government at the centre in 2013, when it emerged that infant mortality in the region was 66 to 1,000 births, there is no road connecting the villages to health centres.


courtesy:NDTV