A blame game has started between the Osmania Hospital forensic authorities and the NGO Satya Harishchandra Foundation (SHF) over disposal of unclaimed bodies. While the latter accuses the OGH mortuary authorities of delaying by more than a month in giving disposal letters to the GHMC after collecting them from the police (the municipal authorities forward the disposal letters to the NGOs for cremation) and sending unclaimed bodies to medical colleges, the hospital authorities deny all allegations and blame the NGO for the delay in collecting the bodies for reasons best known to them. Both have sent representations to the government regarding the matter.
Rajasekhar Kanugula from SHF said, “Initiation of a proper protocol is needed. There’s a lack of coordination between the various departments connected with the disposal of the bodies, namely the GHMC, the police, and the OGH. After the police issues the disposal letters to OGH mortuary, the authorities take around a month-and-a-half to submit the disposal slips to the GHMC from where we collect the bodies for cremation. Due to this delay, dead bodies get decomposed and the local public objects to cremation due to the unbearable stench. At the OGH mortuary we have 30-40 unknown dead bodies at any point of time,” he said.
However, Dr Hari Krishna, head of the department of Forensic Science, at OGH, said, “There’s absolutely no such delay in disposing of bodies or submitting the disposal letters. If it were true, we would be running out of storage space. None of the unclaimed bodies in the mortuary are more than a week old,” he said.