Rayagada district Collector Jagannath Mohanty on Monday admitted a shocking incident of carrying a pregnant woman of the Kalyansinghpur area on a charpoy to hospital due to unavailability of an ambulance on Sunday.
The Collector said that by the time the ambulance reached the village, the patient had already been carried to the hospital. “The Sub-Collector has conducted an investigation. We have asked the concerned authorities to ensure that ambulances reach such areas on time and have advised such patients to go to hospital as soon as they get slight indication of labour pain,” he said. According to sources, though family members dialed up 108 and 102 Ambulance services after the woman had labour pain, no ambulance turned up on time. Then, the family members prepared a charpoy of bamboo and thick blanket and carried the woman on it to the nearby Community Health Centre.
The woman’s travails didn’t end there as there were no doctors to attend to the patient for half an hour till an Asha Worker came to her rescue.