JAMSHEDPUR: Fog hung low over the road as a young father stepped out of a govt hospital in Jharkhand’s Chaibasa with nothing left to save. Inside a plastic grocery bag pressed close to his chest lay the body of his four-month-old son. No ambulance was ready. No money remained. So he turned towards a public bus and began a 70km journey home.Dimba Chataumba, a villager from Baljori – a remote settlement under Noamundi PS limits in West Singhbhum district of southern Jharkhand – had come to Chaibasa sadar hospital hoping doctors could keep his infant alive. Instead, by Friday evening, he was forced to carry Krishna’s body back himself after the govt-run facility said it could not arrange a vehicle in time.Hospital staff told him to wait more than two hours. Their only working ambulance was far away, near Manoharpur, roughly 80km from Chaibasa, district headquarters of West Singhbhum. Chataumba nodded. Then he disappeared.He returned quietly, bought a thick grocery bag from a nearby shop, placed the 3.6kg body of his son inside and left without informing anyone, choosing a public bus over an uncertain wait.Krishna had been admitted a day earlier, suffering from high fever, loose motion and breathing trouble. Blood tests confirmed malaria. Doctors said the child was anaemic and critically ill, needing ventilator support beyond the hospital’s capacity.”The infant was anaemic and was in a critical condition. He required ventilation support. Thursday evening, we asked the boy’s father to take him to Mahatma Gandhi Memorial Medical College & Hospital in Jamshedpur for further treatment,” said district civil surgeon Dr Bharti Gorreti Minz.Jamshedpur, 70km from Chaibasa, has advanced referral facilities. Reaching it, though, costs money Chataumba didn’t have. He pleaded for treatment to continue at sadar hospital. He told doctors he could not afford transport. Oxygen and medicines were given, but by Friday afternoon, Krishna died.Grief quickly turned into urgency. Chataumba asked for a shav vahan, a hearse ambulance, to carry the body home. With only Rs 100 in his pocket, hiring a private vehicle was impossible. Officials asked him to wait. What happened next unfolded without witnesses.”Nobody at the paediatric ward, nor the hospital guard, was informed by the father about carrying his son’s body in the bag. He quietly left the hospital. We all were in the dark,” Minz added.By the time Chataumba reached home, neighbours gathered as he recounted the ordeal, his words spreading shock across the village.An inquiry ordered by the administration later concluded that the father had left hastily. Chaibasa sub-divisional officer Sandeep Anurag Topno’s report said Chataumba could not be contacted when the ambulance eventually arrived because he did not own a cellphone.Scenes like this continue to surface across India, laying bare deep gaps in public healthcare and transport for the poor. In Sept 2024, a Maharashtra couple walked through a muddy forest path with the bodies of their two sons after fever claimed their lives and no vehicle came. In June 2025, a tribal man in Nashik travelled 90km by bus with his newborn’s body in a bag after a civil hospital refused an ambulance.Jharkhand has seen its own share of such moments. This year, HC sought explanations from the state after videos showed a man carrying his sick wife on his shoulder when no ambulance arrived. The memory of Odisha’s Dana Majhi – who walked 12km with his wife’s body in 2016 – still lingers, a case that drew global outrage.Yet, on Friday evening in Chaibasa, those lessons felt distant. Baljori village lies amid forested hills and mining belts near the Odisha border, where public transport is sparse and private vehicles expensive. For families like Chataumba’s, a hospital visit already means debt. A referral to a city hospital can mean surrender.
