The Gandhi Hospital mortuary in Hyderabad.
The State government on Wednesday informed Telangana High Court that all 62 freezer boxes to preserve bodies at Gandhi hospital morgue were fully functional, observing that there were no deficiencies or mishandling of bodies received there.
In a report furnished before a bench of Chief Justice Alok Aradhe and Justice N.V. Shravan Kumar, which took up a report over bodies decaying at the morgue due to dysfunctional freezer boxes published by The Hindu suo moto as PIL petition, the government said recently the 16 boxes were examined. Eight freezer boxes which had become very old have been replaced with eight freezer boxes acquired during COVID-19, the Gandhi hospital superintendent said in the report.
Eight other freezer boxes received during COVID-19 had been kept in a separate location in the vicinity of the morgue as a stand-by for usage if more were required than the 62 functional boxes already available in the morgue, the report said. As on Monday (November 6), there were 16 bodies in the mortuary. Seven out of the 16 bodies were unidentified and were not claimed by anyone so far.
All unidentified and unclaimed bodies (many of which were already in decomposing stage before being brought to the morgue) are kept in the mortuary for the mandatory period of 72 hours as per the rules. “The putrid odour emanating from such bodies cannot be arrested and in spite of the same the doctors are performing the post-mortem examination after 72 hours with all care and precaution,” the hospital superintendent stated in the report.
While 15 to 20 bodies arrive at the morgue on an average daily, three to four of them were unidentified. Though the decomposition would have started in such unidentified bodies, they would be preserved in the freezer boxes to slow down the process of decomposition, the report said. “It is reiterated that there is sufficient storage capacity in the mortuary and till date not a fresh body has undergone decomposition after depositing in the mortuary,” the hospital superintendent stated in the report.
Not a single complaint was received till now from any quarter stating that a fresh body had got decomposed in the mortuary, the report said.
