‘Bamboo-lance’ rescues woman in labour from remote hamlet in Maharashtra’s Nandurbar  

Medical officer rushes to remote village for emergency delivery in Maharashtra's Nandurbar district, facing challenges due to poor infrastructure.

On the morning of September 12, 2024, medical officer Subhash Pavara was carrying out regular check-ups of patients at the Primary Health Centre (PHC) in Son village of Dhadgaon taluk in Maharashtra’s Nandurbar district when he received an urgent call from ASHA (Accredited Social Health Activist) worker Sunanda Valvi. A 23-year-old woman had gone into premature labour at 32 weeks at Nandlawad, a remote hamlet cut off from roads and transport, which medical staff could reach only by traversing dirt tracks and streams for hours.  

“The ASHA worker, stressing the severity of the mother’s condition, said it was impossible to transport her to the hospital. I immediately took my personal car and drove towards the hamlet. Due to poor network connectivity in the region, we could not contact an ambulance. I managed to reach Dhadgaon Rural Hospital and requested Dr. Babulal Pavara and Dr. Santosh Parmar, who were on duty, to arrange an ambulance. On approaching the village, we realised there was no road for a car or ambulance to reach the patient’s hut,” Dr. Pavara said. 

Nandurbar, a tribal dominated district, is located at the edge of Maharashtra’s northern boundary in the Satpura hill range, with Madhya Pradesh to the north and Gujarat to the west. NITI Aayog’s multi-dimensional poverty index score shows an improvement from 52.12% in 2015-16 to 33.17% in 2019-21 for the region, but the district remains the poorest in the State. 

Villagers here carry sick people to the nearest PHC in ‘bamboo ambulances’ or ‘bamboo-lances’ — a makeshift stretcher with two ends of bedsheets tied to bamboo sticks is a common sight. The 17 lakh population here, according to the District Collector’s data, faces numerous healthcare challenges due to a scattered demographic and difficult topography.

Meanwhile, Dr. Pavara received another update from the ASHA worker, who said the mother was about to deliver. Dr. Pavara, along with another ASHA worker Indira Pavara, ran on foot to reach Nandlawad. The first of twins was delivered in the patient’s hut. “The second baby was still inside the mother’s womb. Relatives carried the mother in a ‘bamboo-lance’ to the road for an hour, where the ambulance was waiting, to transfer the patient to Dhadgaon Rural Hospital, 14 km away,” Dr. Pavara said.

The second of the twin babies was delivered successfully upon reaching the hospital.