Unclaimed bodies rot at GH morgue

At the Government Kilpauk Medical College and Hospital’s morgue, 17 unclaimed bodies wait to be cremated. The oldest being a day old male child whose body was abandoned in the hospital’s labour ward. As unclaimed bodies cannot be cremated unless an autopsy is performed, the infant’s body is kept in a cold chamber. 

To perform an autopsy, the police have to make a request and that is yet to happen in this case. The situation is not better at the Stanley Medical College and Hospital, where 19 unknown bodies are yet to be buried. While the Government Royapettah Hospital has around 30 unidentified corpses, the Government Rajiv Gandhi Hospital is in possession of 51 unclaimed bodies.   Despite the city morgues receiving dozens of unclaimed, unidentified bodies every day, disposing them has become a murky business due to the lack of co-ordination between the hospitals and the police department. NGO’s are being roped in on several occasions to dispose the corpses.   

The hospitals claim that they inform the Police Commissioner’s office on each unidentified body and the duty to dispose the corpses was the city police’s. The police seek the help of NGO’s to carry out the task due to lack of funds. The Dean of Government Kilpauk Medical College Dr Narayanababu says that NGOs are neutral organisations and are better equipped to conduct the cremation. He added that the government allows NGOs to cremate unclaimed bodies because it does not want to be criticised for ‘closing the case’. 

However, R Selvakumar, Professor and Head of Forensics said that disposing the body should be done only by the government. “NGOs should not be allowed to carry out the task as there are chances the body could be sold to private hospitals. We need a legislation to uphold the dignity of the dead,” says Selvakumar. According to MV Ramani, Managing Trustee, Jeevathma Kainkarya Trust, the figures of unidentified bodies in the city are not transparent. Recently, he had filed a Right to Information (RTI) petition with the Home Secretary’s office seeking the number of unclaimed bodies at government hospital morgues. 

The petition was transferred to the DGP’s office, then to some of his subordinates and subsequently Ramani was asked to get the information from local police. Ramani alleges that a lot of money is looted in the process of cremating unclaimed bodies. The police department, Forensics department and NGOs claim that the situation will be better if there is an in-house journal for the police department with pictures and details of the deceased, a regularly updated website, a dedicated team of policemen and doctors, a separate cremation ground and a separate mortuary where all the bodies from across the city are kept.