Kerala   

Space crunch at MCH mortuary

Thiruavananthapuram: The antiquated mortuary at the medical college hospital is threatening to shut shop with a large number of unclaimed bodies occupying its limited freezer space, leaving hospital authorities in a fix over the storage of bodies which have to be preserved for study purposes or kept for post-mortem.

MCH authorities said that the problem arose because the city Corporation, which was responsible for removing and cremating unclaimed bodies appropriately, had not done so for the past few weeks.

The problem aggravated on Wednesday when the mortuary at General Hospital went out of order and three unclaimed bodies from this hospital too reached the MCH. The GH has only about six freezers while the MCH has 18 freezers.

“As of today, there are 12 unclaimed bodies occupying our freezer space. We get a large number of accident death cases on a daily basis wherein the bodies have to be preserved for post-mortem and even our current freezer space is hardly enough for us. There is no way we can refuse to store bodies or leave them outside the freezer,” an MCH official pointed out.

According to the provisions in the Anatomy Act and Kerala Municipal Act, hospital authorities need keep unclaimed bodies only for 72 hours. Once this time limit is up and there are no claimants for a body, the case is referred to the anatomy department.

The anatomy department is allowed to examine the body and retain it for study purposes, if required. Bodies which are in a decomposed state or which have been subjected to post-mortem are usually not accepted for study purposes. The MCH authorities are then required to give a formal request to the city Corporation to cremate the unclaimed bodies which are not required by the anatomy department.

“We despatch this letter by hand to the Corporation. There had been problems before too, when there were delays on their part in removing the bodies. After the State Human Rights Commission intervened and sought an explanation about the issue, the Corporation authorities had promised to ensure that the bodies would be removed systematically,” an MCH spokesperson said.

A modern mortuary has been envisaged for the MCH under the Rs.120-crore Prime Minister’s Swasthya Suraksha Yojana. However, it would be another two years at least before the project is completed and the new mortuary becomes functional.

When contacted, Health Officer of the city Corporation, Sreekumar said that there was no wilful delay on the part of the Corporation in removing the bodies. “We remove unclaimed bodies as and when we receive the request from the MCH. We received a request for removing 10 bodies day before yesterday. We will be doing it tomorrow itself,” Dr. Sreekumar, said.

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