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  India   Baby delivered in tractor after ambulance no-show

Baby delivered in tractor after ambulance no-show

Published : Oct 11, 2016, 2:39 pm IST
Updated : Oct 11, 2016, 2:39 pm IST

The Orissa government’s Janani Suraksha Yojana (JSY), which offers ambulance service during pregnancy, failed a tribal woman in Nabarangpur district as she was forced to give birth to her baby in a tr

A TV grab shows the pregnant woman being carried in a tractor trolley in Orissa’s Nabarangpur district.
 A TV grab shows the pregnant woman being carried in a tractor trolley in Orissa’s Nabarangpur district.

The Orissa government’s Janani Suraksha Yojana (JSY), which offers ambulance service during pregnancy, failed a tribal woman in Nabarangpur district as she was forced to give birth to her baby in a tractor trolley on Sunday afternoon.

This comes a little over a fortnight after a man was forced to carry his wife’s dead body on his shoulders for nearly 12 km after the hospital had denied an ambulance to him.

The woman, a resident in the remote district’s Thipapani village, nearly 650 km from the capital city, underwent a harrowing time while travelling in the tractor which had to make its way through the bumpy kuccha road, those present with her at the time said.

“At 6 am, we called 102 and 108 ambulance services but they failed to turn up because of the muddy roads. As a result, we had to carry the woman in a tractor,” a local ASHA (Accredited Social Health Activist) worker said.

“When we called up 102, the respondent said there was no ambulance available at the hospital at the time as the one they have had gone to drop a patient. They said that our request has been transferred to 108 services. We could not wait that long as she was experiencing labour pain and decided to take her in the vehicle we had,” one of woman’s relatives said.

The roads were not motorable and the vehicle had to travel through nullah, river and difficult terrains, all the time imposing huge risk to the patient and the baby.

In the end, the woman delivered a baby girl before they had arrived at the hospital.

The woman and the newborn were shifted to the ambulance mid-way to cover the remaining distance to the hospital.

“When the patient was admitted, she was anaemic and the necessary treatment had been provided to her. She was out of danger and subsequently discharged,” a doctor said.

Location: India, Odisha, Bhubaneswar