Odisha's Koraput gets eight bike ambulances

JEYPORE: To ensure timely access to medical assistance in remote areas with poor connectivity, the State Government has provided eight bike ambulances to Koraput district. These bike ambulances will be used in Dasmantpur, Naryanapatana, Bandhugam, Laxmipur, Lamataput, Kundra pockets. 

There has been an outcry over the inability of a four-wheeler ambulance service to reach patients, particularly pregnant women, in inaccessible pockets of the district. Locals have been demanding alternate services amid many cases where patients in critical condition have been carried in cots, slings, bikes and even on shoulders of relatives, due to the failure of ambulance service to reach them due to bad roads. There also have been reports of pregnant women delivering on the roadside. 

Koraput CDMO Makarananda Behura informed that these ambulances would be pressed into service soon after a high-level meeting at the district level. Meanwhile, the administration has disengaged about 240 health workers after the closure of COVID care homes at the panchayat level. These health workers were appointed last month across 14 blocks in the district.