BHUBANESWAR: Amid the State government’s efforts to ramp up medical infrastructure and facilities to weather the impact of the Covid-19 second wave, a sheer urgency to expand cremation grounds cannot just go unnoticed. Across districts, work is going on in war footing to expand existing crematoriums or designating new grounds for the funeral of the deceased.
The Capital city of Bhubaneswar is adding two more cremation sites at different locations apart from the main Satya Nagar crematorium. So is neighbouring Cuttack. Besides expanding its existing cremation grounds, the Cuttack municipal body has floated tender for selection of agencies to provide manpower for conducting the funerals.
While Sambalpur has already added another crematorium, the district administrations of Sundargarh and Koraput are exploring places that can be developed to cremate bodies as the existing ones are overburdened. But, what is the need for addition of new cremation grounds when the Covid death figures proclaimed by the government are hardly more than 20 a day even as the State has been reporting over 10,000 cases daily?
As per the official figures, Odisha has recorded only 395 Covid deaths at an average six deaths a day since the beginning of second-wave in mid-March. The highest death toll on a day declared on May 14 was 22. Does this warrant the frantic scramble to spruce up crematorium facilities? The existing facilities can easily handle such meagre numbers.
The ground reality is, however, vastly different. While the government is given to suppressing death count under various alibis, the people of the State are not only struggling to find beds in hospitals for treatment but also failing to ensure a proper funeral for their kin succumbing to Covid. Across the State, the crematoriums are overwhelmed with the sheer number of dead bodies. As per ground report, more than 2,000 bodies have been cremated at major cities and towns in the State between May 1 and 15.
The Satya Nagar crematorium in Bhubaneswar is struggling to deal with dead bodies despite working round the clock. On an average, it is cremating 45 bodies a day, including 30 with all Covid protocols. More than 650 bodies have been cremated at Satya Nagar so far this month, sources said. “We were cremating four to five bodies a day during January and February. Now the numbers have gone up beyond our capacity. The number of pyre bases has been increased to 14 from six last year.
We have no rest as the pyres burn all the time. Sometimes people have to wait for hours to cremate the body,” a staffer at Satya Nagar crematorium said and added that he had never seen such an assembly line of bodies. Hospitals, both Covid and private, in Bhubaneswar recorded 138 deaths on May 15, 81 on May 14 and 72 on May 13. SUM and KIMS Covid hospitals have reported an average 15 deaths each a day. They seem to have vanished from the official death figures. At Satichaura in Cuttack in May, 560 bodies have been lit on pyre at an average of 40 bodies a day.
As many as 420 bodies have been cremated in Sundargarh between April 14 and May 14. The number of bodies being cremated in Berhampur, Sambalpur, Balasore, Nuapada and Balangir is pegged at an average of 15, 12, 10, eight and six daily.
Burning pyres belie official death figures
“Like the number of infections, the deaths are also being severely under-reported in the State. Why are the numbers fudged? How will we gauge the pandemic and its consequences if the numbers are not correct? In fact, the government should reveal real numbers so that people will become more fearful and cautious. They will then not have to be forced to adhere to safety protocols,” said noted microbiologist Dr Tribhuban Mohan Mohapatra.
The Indian Medical Association (IMA) has also flagged the mismatch alleging the Health department deliberately does not include many patients with comorbidities in official data. “The selection is a bit unrealistic. Some deaths with comorbidities are counted, some are not,” said IMA State president Dr Kamalakanta Panigrahi.
Health officials, however, insisted that the number of fatalities announced daily may not necessarily be of the day as death audits during a pandemic like this takes time. Once audited, the number will be reflected datewise in the official register. Director of Health Services Dr Bijay Mohapatra said the Covid deaths are being recorded as per ICMR guidelines.
“The committee of experts decides as per the primary and secondary causes of death. If it finds the primary reason for death was heart attack or cancer then such a person may not be counted among the Covid-19 deaths even if he is positive. This guideline is followed across the country. Nothing is being hidden,” he reasoned.
(Inputs from Sudarsan Maharana, Arabinda Panda, Sisir Panigrahy, Prasanjeet Sarkar, Mayank Pani, Akshay Mishra, Sanjay Mishra and Sukanta Sahu)