Madhya Pradesh woman walks 6 km in labour pain for delivery

Bhopal: In a heart-wrenching incident similar to the one witnessed in Odisha’s Kalahandi district recently in which a tribal had been forced to trek 12 km on foot carrying body of his deceased wife on his shoulder, a woman in a Madhya Pradesh village had to walk down six km in labour pain through flood water to reach the nearby hospital for delivery.

Sandhya Yadav (28), a resident of Timariha village under Chhattarpur district, literally dragged herself, being supported by two other women, to cover a distance of six km on foot to pick an auto rickshaw to reach the district headquarters hospital at Chhattarpur on Friday, due to non-arrival of the medical ambulance. The woman delivered a baby girl in the hospital.

Interestingly, the MP government has with much fanfare launched a scheme, christened “Janani Express”, to carry the pregnant women to hospital from their houses in ambulance and back to their houses after delivery, free of cost.

“We repeatedly called the officials concerned to send the medical ambulance when Sandhya got labor pain early in the morning. We were forced to make her walk six km to reach the hospital when the ambulance did not show up”, Namrata Yadav, kin of Sandhya, told this newspaper.

“It is a serious lapse by the driver of the Janani Express. I have ordered a probe into the incident”, Chhattarpur district chief medical officer B.K. Gupta said.