A video of eight-year-old Gulshan sitting with the body of his dead brother in his arms, from Madhya Pradesh’s Morena, has yet again exposed the apathetic state of India's rural healthcare infrastructure.
(Photo: Deeksha Malhotra/The Quint)
Video Editor: Prajjwal Kumar
A video of eight-year-old Gulshan sitting with the body of his dead brother in his arms, from Madhya Pradesh’s Morena district, has yet again exposed the apathetic state of India's rural healthcare infrastructure.
This happened when the father of the two boys was desperately trying to arrange for an ambulance – and had to leave them waiting next to the drainage wall. The younger brother, Raja, had succumbed earlier in the day to water retention in his stomach.
In our latest video in the series 'Harr Viral Video Kuch Kehta Hai..', we look into what led to the disturbing video – and how this is hardly a standalone case of the failure of rural healthcare, at least in Madhya Pradesh.
On 10 July, two-year-old Raja fell ill in Morena district's Badfara village. His father, Poojaram Jatav, rushed him to a local hospital from where he was referred to the Morena district hospital.
Poojaram’s wife had left him a few months ago – and he had been looking after his four children. Raja was the youngest of them.
But Poojaram’s ordeal didn’t end here.
In the last few months, there were at least two such cases in Madhya Pradesh where families were forced to carry the dead bodies of loved ones on carts, cots, and even in their arms.
In June, the Ahirwar family from Chhatarpur district were forced to walk back with the corpse of four-year-old girl, Radha, after they were told about the unavailability of an ambulance.
The family took turns carrying the girl's dead body as they walked in the scorching heat.
In another case, family members of a pregnant woman were forced to carry her on a cot due to the unavailability of an ambulance.
The woman died on the way to the hospital.
As a result, the number of patients forced to 'access private ambulances' is about 10 lakh every year.
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