Amritsar GMC staff swaps bodies of Covid victims

AMRITSAR:THE Amritsar Government Medical College and Hospital (GMCH) staff on Saturday interchanged bodies of two Covid-19 victims while sending them to their families in Amritsar and Hoshiarpur.

On Saturday, a 37-year-old woman of Damganj area of Amritsar had died of Covid-19 at the GMCH. Soon after her death, her body was sent to mortuary and authorities were told to pack her body in the personal protection equipment (PPE) kits before handling the body to her family members.the same day, a 92-year-old man of Hoshiarpur district, who was also undergoing treatment at the GMCH, died and his body was sent to mortuary. The hospital authorities, after packing the bodies in PPE kits, put wrong labels on the caskets.

“The body of Amritsar woman was packed and sent to Hoshiarpur in an ambulance and the body of Hoshiarpur man was sent to family members of the woman. Since bodies were packed in PPE kits and were kept in a box, no one checked it, unless the bodies were taken for cremation. The members of both the families were shocked when they saw during the cremations that bodies of Covid-19 patients were swapped. This happened as hospital authorities put wrong name labels on the bodies,” said a GMCH doctor, reuesting anonymity.

The family had complained to the GMCH authorities after which principal Dr Rajiv Devgan and hospital’s medical superintendent Dr Raman Sharma called a meeting with the doctors concerned.dr Devgan was unavailable to comment.