Now, hospital mortuary only for Covid victims

Karam Prakash
Tribune News Service
Patiala, August 5

The Rajindra Hospital authorities today decided to dedicate the mortuary to Covid-19 victims.

The decision came after The Tribune highlighted that three dead bodies were left unattended on Sunday night at the isolation ward because there was no space at the mortuary.

After the incident came to the fore, senior officials of Government Medical College and the district administration sprung into action and ordered shifting of routine post-mortems to Anatomy Lab of Government Medical College. With this, the capacity of the Rajindra Hospital mortuary for Covid-19 deaths has been increased from eight to 25.

Earlier, the cold room at the mortuary, which has the capacity of 17 bodies at a time, was used for deaths due to other causes, and the cold chamber, which had a capacity of eight, was dedicated to Covid-19 deaths.

Notably, the mortuary had run out of space after a rise in the Coronavirus deaths.

On Wednesday, six Covid deaths were reported at the hospital.

A doctor at the mortuary said the situation would improve with the decision as the mortuary would now have a capacity of 25.