Beed, Oct 15 A 12-year-old schoolgirl died of a snakebite after her family struggled to get her to a medical facility in time due to the lack of a motorable road connecting her remote hamlet in Maharashtra’s Beed district, her family claimed on Thursday.
The incident took place at Gaurwadi in Kaij tehsil on Tuesday evening.
Supriya Babru Ghadge, a Class 7 student at the local Zilla Parishad primary school, was playing outside her house when a venomous snake bit her, said her uncle Mahadev Ghadge.
As Gaurwadi has no proper approach road and is connected only by a rugged path accessible at best by two-wheelers, four-wheeled vehicles cannot reach the hamlet, he said.
“Due to the lack of road connectivity, villagers could not even call the ‘108’ emergency ambulance service,” he said.
The girl’s family carried her on a motorcycle to the sub-district hospital in Neknoor, but precious time was lost along the way. By the time they reached the facility around 8 pm, a doctor examined the girl and declared her brought dead, the uncle said.
Supriya’s father had died in an accident two years ago, leaving her mother, who works as a sugarcane cutter, to raise their five daughters and a son. The tragedy hit the family just as the mother was preparing to leave for seasonal work at a sugar factory, said Mahadev.
Medical officer from the nearby Vida Primary Health Centre, Dr Abhishek Thorat, said that anti-snake venom vials sufficient for 30 patients were stocked and readily available at their facility.
“The patient was not brought to us. Whenever a critical patient arrives, we administer anti-venom before referring them to the intensive care unit for advanced treatment,” he said.
The Maharashtra government in August this year declared snakebite a notifiable disease, making it mandatory for all hospitals, medical colleges and healthcare professionals to report every suspected or confirmed case and death.
(PTI News)
