For the residents of many villages residing in the hilly terrain of Meghalaya, it is a herculean task to get medical help or even reach a health facility as there are many hard to reach villages still existing in the state. Health Minister Dr. M Ampareen Lyngdoh admitted that there are as many as 79 such villages which are still hard to reach.
Stressing on the need to empower village durbars to help improve health reach for the citizens for villages like this, Dr. Lyngdoh said, “Uptill today, a pregnant women and a sick citizen respective of age and gender would have to be taken up that far a distance through very difficult terrain by another person carrying them in a traditional khop or traditional basket at the back of their heads. And I was surprised to see that this practice unfortunately still occurs because of the inability of the health services to reach such a village.”
While appreciating the efforts of human ambulances who help the sick citizens as well as pregnant women to reach the health care facilities, the health Minister said as a token of appreciation the state government will provide monetary assistance to these individuals who undertake this noble task.
“These individuals who carry the sick through difficult terrain do it out of human service because they feel responsible and feel the need to save life without taking anything from villagers,” the Minister said.
“I feel that this important intervention, the efforts of the village citizens to save life and to take patients against all odds to the nearest health facilities needs to be recognised. I have spoken about this to the CM, spoken about this to principal secretary health and we are all in agreement that wherever such human ambulances are in operation we must assign a special monetary assistance to these individuals who do this in order to save a life,” she added.