The struggle for a dignified funeral

Be it cremation ground or burial site, families of infected or suspected COVID-19 patients are having a harrowing time performing the last rites of their loved ones

Outside the CNG cremation chamber at Nigambodh Ghat, Dinesh Singh stood in the sun wearing a blue protective gear, waiting for his turn to perform the last rites of his father, Abhay Singh, 65, a retired municipal officer who was “suspected” to have died of COVID-19.

Singh’s body had been lying in an ambulance for over two hours. His turn will come after four-five hours, Mr. Dinesh was told. The wait did not antagonise Mr. Dinesh too much. He had already been through worse in the last 10 days. Five of those days were spent making the rounds of Lok Nayak Hospital to claim the body of his father. The hospital was not ready to hand over Singh’s body to his son as the former’s COVID-19 test report hadn’t arrived. Finally, on the morning of May 20, Mr. Dinesh signed a document which said “suspected case of COVID-19” and took the possession of the body from the hospital mortuary.

“His body has begun to putrefy and boils had started appearing. He had retired as an inspector-rank officer from MCD. How could they treat him like this after death?” asked the son.

Mr. Dinesh said his family’s ordeal started on the night of May 9 when his father complained of fever. He called for an ambulance at 11 p.m. but it arrived at his residence seven hours later. Singh was taken to Baba Saheb Ambedkar Hospital where they admitted him in the emergency ward.

“A few hours later they told me that they were shifting my father to the Lok Nayak Hospital because he had symptoms of COVID-19. We were apprehensive about the facilities at Lok Nayak but the hospital did not listen to us and sent my father there around 10 a.m.,” he said.

On reaching Lok Nayak Hospital, Mr. Dinesh was allegedly informed that there were no beds available and Singh was left unattended on a stretcher in the corridor. “I begged them to attend to my father but they kept sending me from one department to another. My father was hungry and thirsty, I brought him a packet of biscuits. Around 4 p.m., they finally decided to admit him,” said Mr. Dinesh.

No communication

Being taken to the ward was the last time Mr. Dinesh saw or heard of his father.

“I was told I won’t be allowed to visit my father. I asked the staff how would I be able to contact him because he does not know how to operate a phone, neither is he in a condition to make a call. They took my number and told me they will inform me if required but I never got any call,” he said.

Mr. Dinesh claimed that his sisters continued to call the hospital on the landline number for the next four days but never got any information about their father. “The first time my sister called, she was, in fact, told that there was no patient by that name,” he said.

On May 15, Mr. Dinesh received a call from the police around 4 p.m. asking for a photograph of his father.

“I was shocked. The policemen told me that my father had passed away and asked me to come to the police post,” the son said.

“We don’t know when he died, though the hospital said May 15. They did not even inform me about his death, the police did.” For the next five days, Singh’s body lay in the mortuary and the hospital staff kept telling Mr. Dinesh that his father’s COVID-19 test report was awaited as the sample had been sent to Moradabad for testing.

The missing report

“The body started to decompose. Every day, I visited the mortuary and asked the staff if the report had come and if I could take his body,” said Mr. Kumar, adding that the hospital staff were “not at all cooperative”.

On May 19, an official at the mortuary told Mr. Dinesh in confidence that there was no point waiting and they could hand over the body with a document stating Singh was “ suspected of COVID-19”. “We took the document and the body at 7.30 a.m. on May 20 and brought it to Nigambodh Ghat,” he said.

The family’s troubles, however, did not end there. At the cremation ground, they were informed that only two CNG machines were working. “We had come here at 8 a.m. Four hours have passed and now they are saying that only one machine is working and we will have to wait for four more hours,” said Mr. Dinesh.

Singh’s family members were not the only ones waiting for his cremation. The ambulance driver, employed with the municipal corporation, said that every day he had to wait till the body he ferried was taken for cremation.

Bhookhe-pyaase baithe hain subah se (I have not had anything to eat of drink since morning)” he said.

A visibly frustrated Mr. Dinesh said, “They claim the government is prepared to deal with COVID-19. They’re clearly not.” A senior North Delhi Municipal Corporation official informed that there are six cremation machines at the Nigambodh Ghat grounds. While three have been undergoing maintenance work, the other three are functional.

On complaints of delays in cremating bodies, he said that families have been asked to inform authorities in advance before bringing the body. “They come whenever they like. We can’t stop cremating a body which is already in the machine,” the official said.

Lok Nayak Hospital’s medical director Suresh Kumar said, “There is not much delay in releasing bodies from the hospital. There were some issues at the Nigambodh Ghat and we have told the MCD Commissioner about it. They are increasing the capacity at the crematorium.”

The Delhi government spokesperson did not respond to a query on the delay.

Mr. Dinesh said his family had not been asked to quarantine themselves and they had not undergone any COVID-19 test. The COVID test result of Singh remains a mystery.

Same story, same pain

A similar ordeal was faced by the family of Purushottam Kumar, 51, a resident of Jahangirpuri who passed away at BSA Hospital. His report, too, stated that he was “suspected of COVID-19”.

Kumar’s relative Pradeep Goyal, who had been waiting at the Nigambodh Ghat since 9 a.m., finally cremated the body at 4.30 p.m. Mr. Goyal said Kumar had passed away on May 16 but they received the body on May 20.

“On May 16, we took him to BSA Hospital after he complained of breathing difficulty. Initially, no doctor attended to him and when they finally came, he had already passed away. They shifted his body to the mortuary,” Mr. Goyal said, adding that the hospital staff acted carelessly and noted wrong information about Kumar. When the family tried to correct it, they allegedly told them that it will be corrected later. They were informed that they can collect the body once the COVID-19 report is received.

Mr. Goyal alleged that on the night of May 19, Kumar’s family received a call from the hospital stating that he was COVID-19-positive and that they can cremate the body in the morning. The document given to the family by the mortuary staff stated that Kumar was “COVID-19 suspected”. “When I questioned them about it, they asked me to leave,” Mr. Goyal said.

The hospital staff allegedly also told Mr. Goyal to ask Kumar’s family to get their COVID-19 test done by themselves. “Purushottam’s wife is also showing symptoms; she has fever, cold and cough, but no one has come to even put a COVID sign outside their house. No tests have been conducted so far,” he said.

Burial grounds

Burying bodies of COVID suspects or patients is proving to be as difficult as cremating them. Lal Mohammed, a resident of Bhajanpura and a COVID-19-positive patient, passed away in the early hours of May 20 at Max Hospital, Saket. Though the family members did not have to wait for the body to be released from the hospital, they ran from pillar to post to find a graveyard to bury Mohammed.

He was finally laid to rest on May 21, nearly 36 hours after his demise.

His son Mohammed Sameel said that the hospital staff told them to go to the burial site at Bahadurshah Zafar Marg but the people there said the graveyard cannot accept bodies from Max Hospital in Saket. “The hospital staff then asked us to go to Rohini and while we were on the way, we learnt that the graveyard there has no space left. Next, we were told to go to Dwarka and there too the staff denied burial citing space issues. We got the same response from the graveyard at Shastri Park. In Ghazipur, a staffer told us over the phone that he had locked the graveyard and wasn’t available now,” Mr. Sameel said.

Finally, they made another request to the staff at the Bahadurshah Zafar Marg graveyard and they agreed to bury the body.

Designated sites

There are four burial sites under North and South Delhi Municipal Corporations designated for COVID-19 bodies. These include, two burial grounds at Mangolpuri, one each at Bahadurshah Zafar Marg and Madanpur Khadar.

At the Bahadurshah Zafar Marg graveyard, formally called Jadid Qabristan Ahle Islam, third-generation grave digger Mohammed Shamim shared his own set of limitations. He said that a usual grave is about three feet deep, but for COVID-19 bodies they have to dig 10-feet-deep graves and for that they need to hire an excavation tractor commonly known as JCB.

“The government is not giving us the money for it. If we don’t ask the family, we will have to pay from our own pocket, which we do sometimes when the families are not able to,” he said.

Mr. Shamim said they had buried over 180 COVID-19 bodies – suspected and positive both – and sometimes, in suspected cases, only one or two health department officials come for the burial. “When that happens, we lend our hand after wearing a PPE kit,” he said.

Mr. Shamim said they bury four-five bodies in a day and the hospitals inform the families of the deceased about the burial site. “They inform us and we give them a time slot. We call them only after everything here is ready,” he said.

(With inputs from Nikhil M Babu and Sidharth Ravi)

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