Its 2021 and India is making massive strides in healthcare, but the grim reality of the country's most inaccessible areas still paints a sad picture.
In a video shared by news agency ANI, a pregnant woman was carried on a makeshift palanquin for nearly 12 kms, from her village to the nearest primary health centre in Balapam panchayat area in Visakhapatnam. The two men were seen carrying a makeshift stretcher made of bamboo and a cloth, through an unpaved forest area, to ensure the pregnant woman could get medical attention.
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Tragically, this is not an uncommon incident in the tribal region, which is marked by rough terrain and hardly any roads. The entire area around the Balapam panchayat is thickly forested and is made up of over 3,600 tribal habitats, and 1,136 nearby villages which are inhabited by particularly vulnerable tribal groups. Of the 3,637 tribal hamlets, around 1,200 do not have any form of road connectivity.