Four women carry a pregnant woman on a wooden temporary make shift structure in acute pain to hospital as the connecting road is ten kilometres away from her village

A picture is going viral in social media these days with one of the social media user posting a picture of four village women lifting a make shift temporary wooden structure carrying a pregnant woman to the connecting road ten kilometres away from their village in order to reach the health centre to admit her, deliver the baby. The pregnant woman is obviously in acute pain. The Facebook user writes on his time line : This is Uttarakhand of the 21st century where even today people rely on dandi-kandi. The picture is of Naudu village of Patti Dogi in Tehri Garhwal, where women of the village were taking a pregnant woman to a road 10 km away from the dandi ( make shift wooden temporary arrangement) for delivery and were forced to deliver the baby midway. I feel like crying. Such pictures are usually loaded in social media to acquaint the government towards the plight of the pregnant women or those suffering from critical illnesses especially the senior citizen patients who had to be physically lifted on a cot and carried by four men with four other going with them to change shoulders turn wise , on the way. This is happening due to the non availability of connecting roads in several interior villages or absence of health centres with doctors or medicines including medical equipments missing. Uttarakhand as a separate state has come into existence in the year 2000 and ten chief ministers have changed since then with two national parties ruling the state alternatively. There is a fiscal deficit of Rs. 70000 crores but the concerned health or PWD departments hardly do anything to built connecting roads or provide fully equipped health centres in such villages. There had been several cases when women in pregnency have either delivered babies on the way or died during delivery for want of adequate treatments, in the absence of health centres or connecting roads or non availability of ambulance and doctors including basic medicines and trained paramedics . What is interesting to note is the fact that Uttarakhand’s health budget in the year 2024-25 has been enhanced by 8% to 55 thousand 816 crores , then we wonder why are hospitals, dispensaries and health centres not being constructed in interior villages where people actually reside and need them desperately with basic minimum doctors, equipments, paramedics and staff ? Such worrisome scenes can be seen often in the mountains. Medical treatment is at the mercy of God. To get a tablet worth Rs. 10, one has to spend Rs. 200 and go 20 kms away. The problems are numerous and have assumed a monstrous form. The leadership says that a lot of development is taking place and everything is fine. We will have to find out where and what kind of development is taking place writes one D.S.Rawat in response to this plight of the village women of Uttarakhand, especially the Garhwal region. In another such case of an old woman suffering from abnormal health condition is being taken to hospital by four men climbing the difficult terrains in the absence of road .

Senior journalist and former president of Press Club of India Umakant Lakhera after posting a video of this plight of an old woman writes on X : No one will answer these questions that why even after 75 years of independence, sick helpless women and old people are being taken miles to hospitals for treatment by climbing steep mountains in conditions worse than animals! The Chief Minister of that state has no time these days to change ancient Mughal names.