On the afternoon of September 5, when labour pain struck Kosi, 26, a Gutti Koya Adivasi woman from the remote tribal hamlet of Korkatpadu in Telangana’s Bhadradri Kothagudem district, she couldn’t have prepared herself for the excruciating journey that lay ahead of her. Strapped to a doli—a makeshift stretcher consisting of a wooden cot secured with jute ropes to a log—her vulnerability was apparent as she was lugged to the nearest healthcare facility through a rugged 3.5-kilometre stretch of dense forest.
From the pucca road, she was first taken to a Primary Health Centre in Satyanarayanapuram in Charla mandal in an autorickshaw and then to the well-equipped Government Area Hospital in Bhadrachalam in a 108 ambulance, a government service across India.
Late that night, Kosi gave birth to a healthy boy weighing 2.6 kg through emergency C-Section. This was her first baby, said the medical staff, citing Kosi as a positive example because usually, the tribes marry in their late teens and have babies soon after.
