Helping the poor in last journey

SURAT: Nine years ago, an old woman hailing from a tribal dominated village in Songadh taluka of Tapi district was sitting outside the postmortem (PM) room at the New Civil Hospital (NCH) here. The loss of only bread winner of the family - her husband - had left the tribal woman in grief. But, her tears like her scarce savings, had dried up in two days that she had spent searching for someone to help her take her husband's body back to the remote village.
Moved by this, Rakesh Patel, a prawn farm and travel business owner, started giving free services to the poor helping them transfer bodies of their dear ones from Surat's NCH to remote villages.
Every day Patel spends six hours outside PM room of NCH campus checking if anyone is in need of his help.
Since 2005 when this private morgue service provider first helped a tribal family in conducting the last rites of their sole bread winner, Patel has helped nearly 200 such families transport bodies free of cost in Surat and Tapi districts.
At times, he even crosses Gujarat's boundaries to ensure that bodies of the poor reach their native villages in Maharashtra and Uttar Pradesh among other states.
Patel says at times due to severe financial crisis, families do abandon bodies of their dear ones at NCH. He started helping families transport these without any charges to stop such incidents at the hospital.
"I believe that it is a big service to help people at a time when they have lost a family member," says Patel, 30, who started private morgue van service after realizing the increasing demand of morgue vans at government hospital.
"But some incidents made me realize that not everybody can afford such services so I started the free services for the poor. Now, I charge those who can afford and the profit that I earn from them goes in transporting bodies of the poor that are transported free," says Patel, who currently has six morgue vans and a high-end cardiac ambulance.
And Patel also ensures equal treatment while transporting the bodies of the poor. Like the paid service that he offers to those who can afford, the bodies of the poor too are wrapped, properly clothed, applied 'nilgiri' oil and perfumed with flowers before they are put in air-tight coffins for a longer journey.
Earlier, the poor families had to rent metal coffin boxes. "But I have now developed inbuilt coffin box in my vans to keep the bodies in ice for long distance travel. Also, converting the morgue van into a CNG has helped me reduce cost to provide free service to more needy people," he says.