THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: The Thiruvananthapuram Medical College, which has received as many as 64 unidentified bodies, including nine females, from the district in the last four years, has generated a revenue of Rs 6.4 lakh from the sale of cadavers to private hospitals for research purposes.
As per data obtained by RTI activist Raju Vazhakkala, one fourth of the cadavers - 16 in total - were sold to the private medical and dental colleges in Kollam, Pathanamthitta, Thiruvananthapuram and Kanyakumari districts between January 1, 2017 and November 30, 2021.
The demand for cadavers have skyrocketed as the Medical Council of India (MCI) has stipulated that every 10 students get one cadaver for study, forcing authorities of the private medical colleges to go on a shopping spree for unclaimed dead bodies.
According to the RTI response, the Thiruvananthapuram Medical College Hospital charged Rs 40,000 from the private colleges for each cadaver.
Four colleges in Thiruvananthapuram and one each in Kollam and Pathanamthitta also purchased the cadavers from the medical college hospital. Surprisingly, a Kulasekharam-based private college in Tamil Nadu also purchased four cadavers from the hospital, revealing the growing demand.
The data also revealed that the medical college hospital has Rs 9.4 lakh remaining from the sale of cadaver in the past several years. Cadavers are sold every one to six months to private colleges based on request.
The revenue generated is spent on the upkeep of the mortuary, procuring equipment and chemicals and paying salary to staff engaged in embalming corpses. A three-member committee, including director of Medical Education, Medical College principal and Anatomy department head oversee the sale of the cadavers.
DEMAND SOARS
Medical college hospital charges I40,000 from private colleges for each cadaver
A total of seven colleges - four in the capital, one each in Kollam and Pathanamthitta and a college in Tamil Nadu - have purchased cadavers from the hospital in four years