Bihar: After being denied ambulance, family carries dead relative in plastic bag for postmortem

Katihar (Bihar), Sep 28: In yet another inhuman incident, a family was allegedly denied ambulance to carry a dead relative for post mortem in Katihar in Bihar. Three members of a family carried the body in a plastic bag to Bhagalpur for post mortem.

Talking about the incident, one of the relatives said, “He died 14 days ago from drowning in Ganga. We brought the decomposed body to the Katihar hospital for the postmortem. Initially they said postmortem will be done here, but after keeping body for more than 24 hours, doctor asked us to take it to Bhagalpur.”

When the family asked for an ambulance, the request fell on deaf ears. The relative added saying, “Told the doctors that we don’t have money to take the body to Bhagalpur; they didn’t provide us with an ambulance.” Recently, a number of incidents portrayed the poor state of ambulance facilities in the country. (ALSO READ: Tribal man in Odisha walks 10 km carrying wife’s dead body)

Commenting on the incident, the civil surgeon from the Katihar hospital, SC Jha said, “The body was brought to us on Sunday. As it was badly decomposed, we referred it to Bhagalpur for postmortem. It was the duty of the police to send the body to Bhagalpur.” The deceased, Sintu Kumar drowned around two weeks ago in river Ganga at Kursela and his body was taken out on September 25. (ALSO READ:-Odisha: Husband carries pregnant wife on shoulder as ambulance reaches two hours late)

Lack of ambulance facilities were reported in Odisha in the last month. In one such incident, a tribal man walked around 10 km carrying his wife’s body on his shoulder, as he manged to get transportation facilities from a government hospital in the backward district of Kalahandi where she died. In another incident in Rayagada district in Odisha a man was seen carrying his pregnant wife on his shoulder as the ambulance failed to reach on time. In another pitiful incident of its kind, body of an old woman was broken from hip and bundled in a plastic bag for the ease of transporting as there was no ambulance facility available.

In June, the Supreme Court expressed unhappiness over the lack of standard norms recommended by AIIMS for registering vehicles as ambulances and sought Centre’s response for not notifying them.