Life doesn’t end with death and that isn’t a scriptural prophecy for Hindus with good deeds. It’s a cold-hearted municipal fact. Here’s why: In Delhi’s government mortuaries, post-mortems are performed by technicians who are Grade IV government employees and sweepers, hired on contract from private agencies, as doctors stand around to examine blood samples, conclude the cause, sign and leave.
Without any formal medical training, workers are cutting and stitching bodies along with washing, packing and storing them. They complain not being vaccinated (hepatitis and tetanus). While some of them don’t have gowns, others have gotten blacksmiths to design their surgical tools. In poorly-ventilated halls possessed by a smell saltier than that of the entire city’s drains, they welcome the newly-dead. The only escape from death and the nauseating replay of it is the intake of alcohol at a parallel pace.
“It is true that in many mortuaries, technicians and cleaning staff are conducting post-mortems while doctors sit back and observe. But since the doctor comes and details the findings required for legal purposes, the practice isn’t considered against the law,” says Dr Sudhir Gupta, Head of Forensics, AIIMS. The reason is the lack of strong recommendations by autopsy surgeons on casualties that don’t require dissection. For instance, victims of blasts, and rail and road accidents reported by witnesses, and hospital deaths recorded in an institutions’ paperwork can be cremated straight away, thereby taking the load off the system that faces a crunch of doctors and storage space.
Manish (name changed), who is a hearse driver, is scared of stepping into the morgue in Ghaziabad where autopsies are done in the open, and bodies are rat and lizard infested. Delhi has its own problems. Standing outside the mortuary at Guru Teg Bahadur Hospital in East Delhi, he says that renovation efforts took place overnight owing to a rumoured inspection by the chief minister. “Asli gadbad andar hai,” he notes. Here, the task of managing bodies before and after dissection is done by 20-somethings who complain of not having received their salary (Rs 7,000 per month) since three months. In this mortuary, there are two veteran technicians, one gets drunk and sleeps during the day, while the other train young boys to handle at least six bodies a day. “One look at the body and you can make out if the task was professional or not. Underpaid workers extort bribes from the families of the bereaved. If denied, their cut, they leave bodies leaking,” says Puneet Sharma of Deepak Ambulance Service.
Jitender Singh Shunty, founder of Shaheed Bhagat Singh Sewa Dal, who has been organising free cremations for the poor and unclaimed since two decades, agrees. He says doctors get involved in cases under the judicial scanner. Shunty says the state’s lack of interest in the sector has demoralising outcomes. “The number of bodies is more than there’s refrigerated space for,” he says.
Jitender Sonu, one of Shunty’s volunteers who liaises with the management at Deen Dayal Upadhyay hospital’s mortuary in West Delhi, says forensic doctors no longer have the authority to place orders for medicines and equipment; and the new government’s heightened suspicion of corrupt methods leads to delays in supply of basic amenities and further burdens these establishments. The path to glory leads but to the grave, once wrote Thomas Gray. There’s no poetic verse musing over fate that didn’t see glory and fate that never will.