Tribal woman carried in Dholi gives birth to baby girl on a Road

Vizianagaram: A tribal woman delivered a baby girl on a forest road in S Kota Manda of Vizianagaram on Wednesday, January 1. Due to improper road connectivity, the villagers had to carry the woman downhill, P Chinnamulu, on a makeshift dholi, to get an ambulance.

A video of the woman’s dangerous 4km-long trek from her village Porlu on a hilltop has gone viral on social media. A youngster had posted the video, aiming to highlight the issue of a lack of road connectivity faced by tribals of Vizianagaram district.

The woman suffered labour pains on Wednesday early morning, and since the village was on a hilltop, without any proper roads, the locals made a makeshift stretcher to carry her. It is popularly called dholi in the local parlance, and it is a palanquin made using a cloth tied to a Bamboo pole.

The locals carried the pregnant woman to reach Dabhaguda, from where they could get an Ambulance. However, the woman gave birth to a girl before the ambulance arrived. The ambulance staff said that Chinnamulu delivered the child with the help of the women accompanying her. They shifted the woman and her child to a government hospital at S Kota. Both the infant and her mother are currently stable.

It is not the first such incident in tribal pockets of Visakhapatnam, Vizianagaram and Srikakulam districts of North Andhra Pradesh. “Though we have been requesting authorities to take steps for road connectivity to tribal hamlets, the officials ignored our pleas,” said K Lokanadham of CPM.

Social activist G Srinivas noted that they have helped highlight the problems faced by tribal women many times, but so far, the officials have taken no action.