A 70-year-old man residing in a village in Malda district was carried on a cot to an alleged quack in a neighbouring village on Saturday for treatment as ambulances and other vehicles refused to enter the village owing to its pathetic road.
A video showing two men carrying Kanu Hembram of Mestorpara village under Habibpur gram panchayat in Habibpur block of Malda has gone viral on social media, leaving the administrative officials and elected representatives of local bodies red-faced.
Sources said on Friday night, Kanu complained of acute abdominal pain. As the family members contacted ambulance operators, they refused, citing the bad mud road. Some e-rickshaw drivers that the family approached said the same.
“They told us that the vehicles might overturn or get stuck in the mud piled up on the road that connects our village,” said Arjun, Kanu’s son.
As the patient’s condition deteriorated, the family members and neighbours decided to carry him in a cot.
“We hung a cot in a bamboo with ropes and laid him on it. Then we carried him to a quack who lives in a neighbouring village around two kilometres away. We had no other option as we could not take him to the nearest rural hospital in Bulbulchandi which is around 10km on a cot,” Arjun added.
Kiran Hembram, a neighbour of Kanu, said the road was already in bad shape but had worsened due to the recent rains.
“Vehicles do not come to our village. We had to trudge through the muddy and potholed road every day,” he said.
Saheb Tudu, an elected member of the Trinamool-run Bulbulchandi panchayat, conceded the problem.
“There is no denying that ambulances and e-rickshaws refuse to come to our village. I have approached the panchayat and the block authorities to repair and rebuild the road. But there has been no development so far,” said Tudu.
Officials of the Malda district administration said they heard about the problem of the road connecting Mestorpara village.
“Appropriate steps would be taken so that the road is repaired at the earliest,” said an official.
