In the past couple of weeks, Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) has received criticism after videos of bodies lying around surfaced in hospitals in Mumbai. The attendants have been afraid of going around the dead bodies as the risk of catching the coronavirus runs high.
The BMC has finally found a solution to this problem. The civic body has declared that each attendant who handles a dead body is to receive rupees 1,000 each. Along with the money, the attendants are to receive new pairs of personal protective equipment, gloves, specific shoes, for every shift they work in. From the body packaging to being carried over to the mortuary to finally seeing off the deceased to their family members, these attendants would look after everything, to ensure a successful series of operations.
The decision to give monetary benefits to the medical workers came after the new BMC chief Iqbal Chahal met the health workers and the dean of the Nair hospital on Monday, 12 May 2020. This seemed to be an efficient move as the number of attendants increased who volunteered to work in shifts in Sion and Nair hospital. These attendants signed off charts with their name and phone numbers to work in the hospitals for the coming three weeks at least.
Earlier this month, videos emerged of bodies lying around in plastic bags in Sion hospital. Sion, Cooper and Sevenhills spoke of horrors permeating within the hospital walls in terms of bodies not being disposed of properly and lying parallel to the other patients being treated. Bodies of atleast five patients in Cooper hospital were left unattended for up to twenty-two hours. It was only after some of the patients started sending out videos to display the morbid situation in the hospital wards did the authority take notice and moved the deceased from there.
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