MARGAO: The non-functioning and space-hit Hospicio mortuary has come back to haunt the hospital and police authorities.
While there’s no space to accommodate the dead in the mortuary, a non-functioning unit whose cooling temperature has been certified as below normal for want of maintenance is still playing host to a body or two.
While Hospicio Medical Superintendent Dr Siona Gomes claimed that a lone body is housed in the non-functioning unit, sources, however, said a total of four bodies are presently lying in the mortuary unit. The pathetic state of affairs is no different at the 20-unit mortuary at the TB hospital. The mortuary is almost full and the authorities passed the buck on the men-in-uniform for the delay in disposing off the dead bodies involving medico-legal cases.
Questions are raised in the Hospicio corridor why hospital authorities and the police have till date not got the bodies in the non-functioning mortuary disposed off or shifted to the GMC till date if the unit is functioning below normal. When this question was posed to the Hospicio medical superintendent, Dr Gomes said her office had written to the police department to clear the dead body, but in vain.
When Herald, however, contacted Deputy SP Mohan Naik to shed light on the situation at the Hospicio mortuary, he said that police carry out timely disposal of the dead bodies except bodies in custodial death cases, which requires prior permission of the district magistrate.
Incidentally, the mortuary at the TB hospital is also facing space constraints with the morgue accommodating a number of unclaimed bodies brought in by the police. Says Margao Municipal Councillor Damu Shirodkar: “I had personally visited the TB hospital mortuary last night after a local citizen breathed his last at around 9 pm, but the body was accommodated in the mortuary only in the wee hours for want of space”, Shirodkar said, while calling upon the authorities to streamline the functioning of the mortuary unit.
