Pregnant woman dies after ambulance delay

Kendrapada: A pregnant woman died allegedly after a delay in getting an ambulance in Kendrapada district Thursday. Sabita Swain, wife of Santosh Kumar Jena of Purba Nikirai village under Nikirai police station, developed labour pains around 7am. Her family members reportedly contacted the 102 ambulance service, but could not get an ambulance. A 108 ambulance was later sent from the Kendrapada District Headquarters Hospital (DHH) to bring her to the hospital.

However, Sabita died on the way, and doctors at the DHH declared her dead. Police registered an unnatural death case and sent the body for post-mortem before handing it over to the family. Local social workers Debashish Samal, Chandan Kumar Sahu and Prakash Chandra Jena alleged that the absence of an ambulance at the Indupur Community Health Centre (CHC) had caused difficulties in accessing emergency medical care. They said the CHC is only about 1 km from Sabita’s house, while the DHH is nearly 20 km away. They urged the authorities to provide an ambulance at the CHC.