CUTTACK: Inordinate delay in shifting bodies of Covid-19 patients both from homes and hospitals by Cuttack Municipal Corporation (CMC) has irked residents in the city.
A-26-year-old youth, who was undergoing treatment in home isolation at Bamphi Sahi, succumbed to the virus on Friday morning.
The neighbours were unaware about the Covid patient as the civic body is not putting up posters or signage as done earlier.
After the patient’s death, his younger sister informed the CMC’s control room. Doctors in the control room asked her to go for a video calling to confirm the death.
While the deceased’s family members requested the control room staff to shift the body to the crematorium, the answer was that the bodies were being shifted serially.
“The body will be shifted when the serial number comes,” they told her.
The Sahi people then interfered and urged City Health Officer Satyabrata Mohapatra who is also a resident of Jhanjirmangala near Bamphi Sahi.
But all their efforts went in vain.
Later, the matter came to the notice of CMC Commissioner Ananya Das following which the dead body was shifted to crematorium with the help of volunteers of a social organisation at 7 pm.
In another incident, a 14-year-old girl of Haripur was seen waiting near Satichaura crematorium with a neighbour woman from Fridaymorning to light the funeral pyre of her father, an advocate, who succumbed to Covid-19 at SCB Covid Hospital on Wednesday night.
Her father’s body reached the crematorium at 11 pm and she lit the pyre at midnight.
The City Health Officer, who is in-charge of shifting and disposal of Covid patients’ bodies, said they had to maintain the Covid protocol for which shifting of the body was delayed.