Patient’s kin wait 17 hours for body

On Tuesday night, Prasant Khambakar, a 35-year-old patient from Thane who had undergone kidney transplantation on January 28 at Nair Hospital died in the hospital. However, the patient’s family had to wait for 17 hours to get the body after post-mortem as they were asked to prove they were close relatives.

Since the transplant, the patient was undergoing treatment at the hospital but on Tuesday night around 11.30 pm, he died. However, the patient’s family claims that the doctors wanted to conduct a post-mortem to find out the reason for Khambakar’s death. However, in the patient’s death certificate, the cause of death has been stated as natural.

As post-mortems are not conducted in the night, the family was given the time next day at 3 pm. But the procedure got delayed till 6 pm on Wednesday. Also, the patient’s wife, Shraddha, 32, was allegedly made to run to police station to provide her statement to claim the body. But due to bureaucratic apathy and mismanagement, the delivery of the body got delayed further.

Talking to The Asian Age, one of the relatives of the deceased who was present in the hospital, Ajay Jalgoankar said, “We had asked the doctors from forensic department if the wife’s presence was necessary for the body to be released and they had said that it was not. Shraddha had to go to the police station to give a statement and to get the body released. Meanwhile, the hospital authorities refused to release the body to us and asked us to talk it out with the police.”

“When we approached the police, they said that in order to claim the body we have to prove that we are indeed the relatives of the deceased. One whole day was lost in the confusion of all these procedures” he added.

All the relative members of the patient were waiting at the hospital since morning to take the body and conduct his last rites. The couple got married three years ago and Khambakar was diagnosed with kidney failure almost two years ago. The kidney transplant was supposed to give him a new lease of life but he did not survive the operation.

Repeated attempts were made to contact the dean of the college, Dr Ramesh Bharmal but he could not be reached. While talking to the deputy dean Dr Shivraj Das, he said that the hospital conducts post-mortems till 8pm but refused to divulge more details.