Tamil Nadu: Retired official seeks proper protocol for receiving bodies

MADURAI: A retired Assistant Commissioner has urged the government to frame a proper protocol for receiving donated bodies after he alleged that his family was made to wait at the Government Rajaji Hospital (GRH) mortuary in Madurai for nearly three hours on August 16 while trying to fulfil his wife's wish to donate her body for medical education.

V Palanivelu, a retired Assistant Commissioner of the Madurai Corporation, submitted a petition to the Madurai District Collector on Monday stating that his wife, Maniyamma, who had retired as a District Child Development Project Officer in Madurai district, had long wished to donate her body for the education of medical students.

Maniyamma died at a private hospital on August 15. To fulfil her wish, the family informed the administration of the Government Rajaji Medical College Hospital on the same day about their decision to donate her body, he told reporters.

However, when Palanivelu contacted the hospital administration on August 16 to ask them to receive her body, he was allegedly informed that the medical college would not function on Sunday. “To our shock, they instructed us to hand over the body at the Government Rajaji Hospital mortuary instead of taking it directly to the Department of Anatomy,” he recalled.

To fulfil his wife's wish, Palanivelu, along with his family members, took the body to the mortuary. However, the staff there allegedly made them wait for nearly two hours as they suspected it to be an accident. “Only after we explained why we had brought her body to the mortuary did they accept it,” he said.

The ordeal did not end there. Palanivelu alleged that the hospital administration agreed to accept the body for donation only after he took up the issue with a former GRH Dean known to him. Following repeated efforts by the family, the body was taken from the mortuary to the Department of Anatomy at 11 am on August 17. A certificate acknowledging receipt of the donated body was issued at 12.30 pm, he said.

He urged the district administration to formulate clear protocols to ensure that donated bodies are received with dignity and due respect, in the presence of the medical college Dean, and requested that his appeal be brought to the attention of the Tamil Nadu Chief Minister.