JAIPUR: In a bizarre incident, the mortuary officials at Jaipur's Sawai Man Singh (SMS) hospital inter-changed two dead bodies while handing them over to their relatives.
Grief-struck relatives took the first corpse without even checking. But when relatives of the second corpse claimed it was not the body of their dead relative, a huge chaos erupted in the hospital. The SMS administration has now formed a special committee to investigate the case.
The mortuary authorities had by mistake exchanged the bodies in the hospital. The body of a resident from Phagi was given to a family of a deceased patient from Kouthoon. Once the confusion over the corpses was realized, the family, which had taken the first corpse, had to be called back and the corpses were handed over to their relatives.
The issue came to light when Babulal, a resident of Phagi tehsil, died at the SMS hospital on Monday night. When his relatives were given the body on Tuesday afternoon, a ruckus erupted in the hospital as the corpse was not that of Babulal. Soon it was realized that the mortuary officials had handed the body of one Shambhudayal, a resident of Kouthoon. A few hours earlier the mortuary staff by mistake handed Babulal's body to Shambhudayal's relatives.
The police was then informed about this confusing case. Eventually, the police telephoned the relatives who took the first corpse and told them about the incident. Since the corpse was not cremated, the family returned to the hospital with Babulal’s corpse – and ultimately the bodies of Shambhudayal and Babulal were handed over to their respective families.
Hospital authorities have accepted laxity that led to wrongful exchange of bodies by the mortuary officials in the hospital but have pointed out that the confusion happened as the post-mortems of both the bodies were conducted on Tuesday and relatives of Shambhudayal took a wrong corpse by mistake.
Dr. Rajesh Sharma, Superintendent of SMS hospital, said, "We have formed a committee of three senior doctors to look into this matter. Once they give a report, we will take action those guilty."