COVID-19 apathy: Hospital staff in TN ask relatives to look for kin among pile of bodies

As the nation's battle against COVID-19 rages on, inattentive and irresponsible acts of managing COVID bodies have been reported across the country. On Wednesday, one such incident of horror took place in Tamil Nadu. Dreadful images flooded the internet, where it was visible that piles of COVID casualties were stacked in a small mortuary. Adding to the terrible situation, the security personnel of the mortuary reportedly asked the relatives of the deceased to enter the room and identify their kin themselves inside the mortuary.

Dean takes quick action against the staff

GH Dean Balaji Nathan, Dean of Theni Government Hospital condemned the situation and acknowledged that the hospital has failed to abide by COVID SOPs, he informed that appropriate actions will be taken against the irresponsible staff. Reportedly, one contract labourer has been dismissed and departmental action has been initiated against two government staff. The hospital, however, did not give any explanation over how COVID dead bodies were piled all together in a small mortuary and why the relatives of the dead were asked to carry on with the identification procedure on their own. The incident surfaced post to the death of a COVID patient of May 31 and the relatives were asked to take the body from the mortuary due to the unavailability of staff. 

As India's death toll stands at 3.35 lakh, many cases of COVID protocol violation have been reported across the nation. Incidents like the dumping of COVID dead bodies into the river Ganga across the state of Uttar Pradesh and Bihar were cited last month. Noting the distressing actions by people, the Government deployed police forces in many parts of UP and Bihar to prevent dumping dead bodies into the river or burying them on the banks.

India currently stands with a total caseload of 2.83 Cr. In the last 24 hours, the nation reported fresh 1.33 lakh cases, along with 3,207 more deaths and 2.31 lakh recoveries.