It’s happening in the 21st century

July 21, 2022 42 Views No Comment

Villagers in interior Peren trek to hospital carrying ailing nonagenarian

Morung Express News
Dimapur | July 21

There was a time when the ailing and the infirm had to be transported on foot to reach hospitals. That was a time when there were hardly any motorable roads in Nagaland and even if there was, it was limited to linking the district headquarters. One had to trek to the nearest township or district headquarters to get public motor transport for onward travel to Dibrugarh, Jorhat, Guwahati, Dimapur or Kohima to access better healthcare, higher education and all other stuff not found in villages. There was no option B, that was the life and hard it was.

Things have changed nowadays; life has become quite comfortable with roads reaching almost all villages.

But still, in the so called 21st century, there are situations when people are hard pressed to get back to doing things like in the old days.

It played out on July 20, 2022, in Peren district when an ailing elderly man of Lalong village had to be carried some 11km on foot by villagers to get him to a hospital.

As told to The Morung Express, by a concerned citizen from Peren, the patient was a 90 year-old, Wangzam Pame. Pame had been unwell for the past three weeks but could not get motor transport because of an unattended landslide blocking the road linking Lalong to Nsong town, an EAC headquarter, bordering Manipur state, falling under Tening ADC subdivision.

“He has been unwell for over three weeks. He waited for three weeks for the road to be cleared but his health deteriorated and his family had no option but carry him on foot to Nsong today,” the citizen said.

To bypass the blocked portion of the road, they had to take a “shortcut,” an 11km track to Nsong. From Nsong, he was taken to Jalukie by car.

As for the road, the citizen claimed that it has been blocked since April. “Heard today that machinery was sent to clear the landslide but the excavator was said to be not in good condition,” he said.

The road to Lalong from Nsong traces the neglected Tening-Lekie Road till Ngam village, from where it breaks off towards Lalong.

This approximately 16km road from Ngam to Lalong is known to the locals as “PMGSY Road,” on which occurred the landslide, allegedly in April. It owes the name to the Central government scheme, under which, there is a yet to be implemented black-topping project sanctioned sometime in 2013.

Source: https://www.morungexpress.com/its-happening-in-the-21st-century