Karnataka: Elderly woman taken to hospital in makeshift cot due to lack of road connectivity in Uttara Kannada

The locals said that they had to trek for 2.5 km to carry the ailing woman before she was taken to the hospital by a private vehicle.

Uttara Kannada (Karnataka): In a heart-wrenching incident, an octogenarian woman in Uttara Kannada district of Maharashtra had to be taken to the hospital on a makeshift cot due to the lack of road connectivity to her village. The incident has raised questions over the government's tall claims of providing road connectivity to far flung villages across the country.

It is learnt that the incident took place at Sanaka village of Joida taluk of Uttara Kannada district of Karnataka. Local sources said that the 80-year-old woman named Draupadi Desai, a resident of Sanaka fell seriously ill. While it would have been a matter of a few minutes to take the woman to the hospital elsewhere, an ambulance could not reach the village to take Draupadi to the hospital due to lack of road connectivity.

As the elderly woman writhed in pain, the locals rose up to the occasion to get the woman treated. Locals in Sanaka village carried the woman on a makeshift cot and set out for the hospital. The locals tied a blanket carrying the woman to the ends of a log of wood and carried the log on their shoulders. The locals said that they had to trek 2.5 km to carry the elderly woman on their shoulders.

Later, she was admitted to a hospital in Dandeli by a private vehicle where she underwent the treatment. Locals from many villages in Uttara Kannada district complained of lack of road connectivity saying they have not been connected to roads for the last seven decades. The locals said that the elderly woman's is not an isolated incident.

Such incidents are often reported often at the time of childbirths and illnesses, they said.