The sub human conditions, utter lack of basic health care and absence of accessible roads in the tribal areas of north coastal Andhra Pradesh districts were brought into focus by a youth who used his mobile phone to shoot a shocking scene of how a pregnant lady had to deliver in forest midway her journey on the shoulders of men.
The video which has gone viral on the social media and was also being shown on TV channels all over, shows how the woman Muthamma was carried in a make shift palanquin (a piece of cloth hanging from a bamboo pole carried by men folk on their shoulders) as there was no road to connect their hamlet atop a hill to the hospital seven kms away. The incident happened on Tuesday last in Maasika Valasachintala under Saluru mandal of Vizianagaram district of Andhra Pradesh.
When only half the distance was covered on foot through difficult terrain the pains became unbearable for Muthamma and she was forced to deliver in the open forest with the help of a couple of women. With the woman sitting in the background, the tribal youth explained her ordeal and how their frequent appeals to the Government for a road were ignored over the years.
The video also ha a chilling scene of how the umbilical cord of newly born boy was cut by two men with a blade. The video said that both the mother and baby were safe. “With nobody coming to our help despite our appeals we are forced to carry our seriously ill and pregnant women like this”, the youth could be seen making an appeal for help.
The visuals show the narrow and difficult covered with mud and stones on which the group had to walk carrying the woman. Officials of Integrated Tribal Development Agency say that bout 15 hamlets in Saluru did not have road connectivity. Though Government sanctioned `5.5 crore last year to lay a 9.8 kms long stretch of road, no contractor came forward to take up the work in difficult terrain and work could not be completed.
Vizianagaram is one of the three north coastal Andhra districts parts of which are called agency areas inhibited by the tribal people. While the industrialised and prosperous port city of Visakhapathanam shows the brighter side of the region, the poor and neglected tribal areas and the sufferings of their inhabitants remain unreported and ignored. The incident involving Muthamma was norm rather than exception in the region. The health care facility in the region is so pathetic that every year seasons diseases like malaria and brain fever claim a large number of lives.
In fact several villages in Saluru were in the grip of malaria and dengue for the last few weeks and locals claim more than 50 people have died.
One positive fall out of the spread of the mobile phones connectivity in the farthest and remotest areas in Andhra Pradesh was that the youth were able to bring out the stark realities of the lives of the people to the attention of the outside world and make the government officials and others hear their cries for help.