Sambalpur: A patient was seen being pushed on a stretcher along a busy road after “no ambulance was available” at the Kuchinda sub-divisional hospital in Odisha’s Sambalpur district, triggering public outrage.
After the video circulated online, the state health minister Mukesh Mahaling asked officials to look into the matter and take appropriate action.
The patient was identified as Ganesh Suryalia of Bagadihi village, who had suffered a serious leg injury. He was first taken to the Kuchinda hospital, where doctors examined him and referred him to VIMSAR, Burla, for advanced treatment, a source said.
However, instead of being taken to Burla, his relatives allegedly acted on the advice of middlemen near the hospital and pushed him on a stretcher through the streets before admitting him to a nearby private hospital, the source added.
In a separate case from Sambalpur, a 70-year-old rickshaw puller pedalled nearly 600 km to ensure treatment for his ailing wife after failing to arrange an ambulance.
Identified as Babu Lohar, he began the journey after his wife Jyoti suffered a paralytic stroke in November last year and was referred to SCB Medical College and Hospital in Cuttack. With no money to hire transport, Lohar placed old cushions on his rickshaw van, laid his wife on it and set off, covering about 30 km a day. The journey took nine days.
After nearly two months of treatment, the couple started their return journey on January 19, again on the same rickshaw. On the way back, Jyoti was injured when a vehicle brushed past the rickshaw near Choudwar. She was taken to the Tangi community health centre, where staff provided food and shelter for the night.
Tangi police station in-charge Bikash Sethi later spotted the couple and offered to arrange a vehicle, but Lohar declined. “His determination and emotional attachment are deeply moving,” Sethi was quoted as saying, adding that Lohar accepted some cash for food before continuing the journey.
PNN