A man buried his father twice after a hospital in New Delhi handed over to him the wrong body in the first instance, The Indian Express reported on Monday. The two bodies got mixed up at the mortuary at Lok Nayak Hospital in Delhi last week as the two persons shared the same name – Moinuddin.
Kalamuddin’s family had been handed over the correct documents, but the body shown to him at the mortuary – purportedly his father’s – was difficult to identify. “The body that my husband saw had a swollen face and bloodstains, which made it hard to ascertain if it was my father-in-law,” Kalamuddin’s wife said. “Hospital staff said this was caused when they removed the dialysis pipe. My husband had his doubts, but the report given to him had the correct address and name, so he believed them.”
Kalamuddin’s father, who had been on dialysis at a hospital in Patparganj, was referred to Lok Nayak Hospital on June 4 for a coronavirus test. He died that night from kidney failure, Kalamuddin’s wife said.
Aijaz Uddin, the brother of the other deceased, told The Indian Express that he had seen around 250 bodies at the mortuary, before finding out that his brother had already been buried a day earlier at a burial ground at Delhi Gate. “We called the person who had taken the body and asked him to send a picture of the face,” Aijaz said. “It was clearly my brother.”
Aijaz said his brother was brought to the hospital on June 2 after his blood pressure fell considerably. He died while an electrocardiogram test was being conducted. Moinuddin’s wife died of a heart attack when told of his death.
Two days later, test results showed that his brother had been infected with the coronavirus. On June 5, when Aijaz went to the mortuary to collect his brother’s body, he was given the wrong one. “The report said Moinuddin, son of Rahimuddin, about 70 years old, while my brother is the son of Amiruddin, aged 50,” he said. Kalamuddin ended up burying his real father in the end.
On June 7, Aijaz learnt that his brother had been buried. “It was no use to extract the body again… It was buried following all rituals,” he said. “Police and hospital staff were blaming the other person [Kalamuddin], but it was the hospital’s fault.”
Delhi has one of the highest caseloads in the country. As of Monday evening, it had recorded 28,936 cases of Covid-19, including 812 deaths. The huge number of cases has strained Delhi’s healthcare system.
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