NABARANGPUR: Parents of twin girls, who were unable to get a Mahaprayan vehicle, were on Saturday forced to carry the body of their child on a hired auto-rickshaw from the District Headquarters Hospital (DHH) to their village at Gadabaguda in Nandahandi block.
Sources said on Friday, Dhana Santa and his wife Dhanamati of Gadabaguda village had admitted their three-month-old twin baby girls, who were suffering from pneumonia, to the DHH for treatment. While undergoing treatment, one of the twins died in the evening. After the death of the girl, the couple, holding her body on the lap, waited for five hours to get a Mahaprayan van, the Government-sponsored hearse, but the vehicle was out of service due to lack of maintenance. Finding no other option, Dhana hired an auto-rickshaw to carry the body from the hospital to Gadabaguda village.
Hospital sources said the Mahaprayan vehicle is lying defunct due to lack of repair. Since launching of the scheme, no fund has been given for maintenance of the vehicle which went out of service 15 days back.
In another incident, family members of a 27-year-old woman of Taragam village under Sadar block, who died in the DHH on Saturday, also failed to get a vehicle under the scheme.
A day after Dana Majhi carried his dead wife on his shoulders in the absence of ambulance service in August 2016, Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik had launched the scheme under which dead bodies will be carried from hospitals free of cost. Family members will be provided vehicles to carry the dead bodies of their relatives, who die in hospitals, to their homes free of cost under this scheme, which will be available at all the DHHs and three medical colleges and hospitals in the State.
However, the scheme has failed to provide the service to the needy due to the health administration’s apathy in maintaining the vehicles. Collector Ajit Mishra said arrangements are being made to restore Mahaprayan service. The district administration has allotted fund for the repair of the vehicle, he added.