Uttarakhand: Sick woman carried on shoulders for 12 km to see doctor

Uttarkashi, July 20: Exposing the rickety health infrastructure in remote areas, family members of a 52-year-old ill woman carried her on their shoulders for 12 kms to reach the nearest medical facility in Uttarakhand's Badiyar.

Shakuntala Devi, a resident of Dingadi village in Uttarkashi district, was suffering from acute dehydration and fever for a week. When homemade remedies did not work, her family members on Monday decided to carry her on their shoulders to see a doctor in Sarnol, 12 km away, a PTI report said.

They put the woman on a chair, tied it to a bamboo-made frame, and carried it on their shoulders to take her to the first doctor available.

"This is the sorry state of affairs of health facilities in about eight villages of Badiyar in the district even seven decades after Independence and 22 years since Uttarakhand's creation," social worker Kailash Rawat said.

He said in Badiyar, villages such as Sar, Dingadi, Gothuka, Panti, Kimdar and Levtadi lack any kind of health facilities.

It is not just health, there are no proper roads or educational facilities in the area, the social workers said.

"Not just Shakuntala Devi, many sick people from the area have been taken on 'dandis' to nearest health centres and several of them succumbed on the way," he added.