Surmat Dada, a 53-year-old Adivasi from Arandi village, Balaghat, expounds on this as he says, "PHC is 15 kms away from our village, and also the roads are poor. At the time of delivery for bringing vehicle from PHC we have to arrange money and travel all the way to Gadhi [which is 15 km far] to inform the attendants in PHC. It gets taxing [economically] on us. Therefore, we prefer to have deliveries in our home only. Moreover, since there is no doctor in PHC we rely more on our traditional mid-wives than the attendants there. Who will save the mother when there is no doctor in the PHC?" Other villagers also told us that they prefer to have deliveries in home as they found it safer! High rates of maternal death are associated with the limited access to healthcare of expectant mothers. As a matter of fact there were 53 maternal deaths reported in the district in the period of April-December 2008; highest among all the districts in Jabalpur division and 766 infant deaths in the same period. It is worth mentioning that Madhya Pradesh tops the list in the case of infant mortality (IMR-74) in the country and it is the highest among the tribal communities.

Certainly, people are gradually losing their belief in public health sector and are drifting apart but no one seems to be paying any heed to it. As per NFHS - 3, 62.6% population in state generally does not use government health facilities and the highest rated reason for this is poor quality of care in such centres [62.9%]. On the other hand, as a part of National Rural Health Mission, the state government has recruited 44379 ASHA workers till the month of December 2007 for improving maternal health. But in the four Baiga villages of Baihar block [Balaghat] and Bicchiya block [Mandla], namely, Arandi, Dhaniyajor, Bhanpur Kheda and Muala Maal we could not trace any ASHA worker! Furthermore, as per NFHS - 3 Quality of healthcare indicators by state, India, 2005-06 reveals that merely 16.9% women are in any contact with a health worker in Madhya Pradesh.

This data is enough to depict the ground realities of government schemes and programmes and its commitment to improve health scenario across the state. It clearly shows the limited access of people towards health care services and lackadaisical attitude of health workers to reach out to them who need it most. Mesram, a MPW [Multi Purpose Health worker] says, "Gadhi PHC is running without any doctor for the last 2 years. The last doctor in this PHC got transferred in the year 2006. Prior to this the PHC was without any doctor for last 8-10 years. Patients are treated by a compounder and dresser; there are no nurses as well!". Notwithstanding our surprise on this situation her attitude towards this was casual. On regular reach of healthcare to tribal villages she said, "due to poor road conditions the tribal villages are not visited by the health workers for the four months during rainy season". This means that expectant mothers and children in tribal villages are kept deprived from health care services for a period more than a quarter in a year! Madhya Pradesh is a mostly tribal populated state and it also counts the highest level of malnutrition in the country.

Moreover, despite such a significant proportion of tribal population state doesn't have its own health policy and we are in complete disarray over what stand it is going to take towards the tribal health and alternative health practices? It seems that there is no respect towards the indigenous knowledge in the state policies and schemes. The limited access of tribal population to health care centres and irregular visits of health workers to such habitation makes it all the more urgent and imperative to take account of tribal health and health care services but the state government seems in no mood to resurrect its lopsided public health facilities.