Huge arrival of bodies keeps GH docs busy with autopsy

It was on Monday that the busy General Hospital in the heart of the city received 22 bodies for autopsy owing to several cases of accidents and other medico-legal death cases across the city and its outskirts, resulting in the piling up of bodies for post-mortem (PM). Despite having started the autopsy process at 10 am, the procedure was performed only on 19 bodies the same day. 

Stating that the remaining cases were taken up on Tuesday, Dr Narayana Babu, dean of the hospital, said, “We had a sudden surge of bodies at the mortuary on Monday. Though not a first of its kind, it is not very common. Three of the 22 were stored to be taken up on Tuesday. We completed the PM on the three bodies along with four others that came in on Tuesday.” 

As an inquest for autopsy can be received only until 4 pm, we had to store the remaining for the following day. “Bodies are brought in throughout the day and post-mortem can be done only until 6 pm – three at a time,” added the dean. 

Stressing on the need for PMs to be done very carefully, the dean said that each body must be given two hours of time. 

“No case should be done in less than an hour. An hour before the autopsy is initiated, a report must be prepared with information such as identification marks on the body. An hour after the post-mortem, we must focus on putting in specimens and packing the body and be careful while handing over the body to the family,” he said, adding, “If two bodies have similar names, we cannot afford to mix up the two. Also, as the reports will be useful for pursuing a case, the report should be prepared properly.”

As bodies are brought in from across the state, and sometimes from the Andhra Pradesh border as well, the numbers can sometimes be high. “We received five railway accident cases and one road accident case on Sunday night,” said a source from the hospital mortuary. 

The mortuary has sufficient space to store 100 bodies and at any given time three post-mortems can be done. 

“The government had modernised the mortuaries at Madras Medical College, Stanley Medical College and Hospital, Kilpauk Medical College and Hospital and Royapettah Hospital with 0 to -4 degree storage capacity. The body can be kept fresh for two months. Usually, we keep for 45 days, but sometimes, if the case is highly sensitive, we keep it for 60 days,” said an official of the Forensic Department.