Bombay High Court seeks info from Maharashtra govt, BMC on condition of crematoriums

The bodies of COVID19 patients cannot be kept lying for hours waiting to be cremated the Bombay High Court said on Tuesday and asked the Maharashtra government and the BMC to inform it about the condition of crematoriums across the state and in MumbaiA division bench of Chief Justice Dipankar Datta and Justice G S Kulkarni said in several crematoriums there is a waiting period before bodies are cremated and relatives of the victims are forced to queue outside the crematoriumsThe Maharashtra government and all other civic authorities will have to come up with some mechanism to address this issue Bodies cannot be left lying like that for hours together They are corpses the court saidIf there is a waiting period at a crematorium the body should not be released from the hospital the HC saidJustice Kulkarni cited an incident in Maharashtras Beed district where 22 bodies of COVID19 victims were stuffed in an ambulance while being transported to the crematoriumThe court was hearing a bunch of public interest litigations seeking directions pertaining to shortage of Remdesivir injections oxygen supply availability of beds and other issuesAdvocate Simil Purohit appearing for one of the petitioners told the court that tokens are being distributed at crematoriumsThere has to be some dignity in death Making bodies lie around like that would also increase the spread of the virus Purohit arguedThe court took note of the arguments and said media reports also point out the ground reality at crematoriumsThe condition of some crematoriums is such that furnaces are not working The authorities should come up with some mechanism or set up alternate sites for cremating the bodies the court saidThe HC directed the Maharashtra government and Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation BMC to file an affidavit on April 29 apprising the court about the condition of crematoriums across the state and in MumbaiThe court also directed the Union government to file an affidavit on the supply and allocation of Remdesivir injections to MaharashtraThe Union government shall inform how much quantity of Remdesivir is allocated Maharashtra is still on top visavis the number of COVID19 cases the court saidThe bench also sought the Union governments response on a recent incident where BJP MP Sujay Vikhe Patil reportedly procured Remdesivir vials from Delhi and distributed them in Ahmednagar district of MaharashtraThis MP airlifted 10000 vials of Remdesivir from Delhi and distributed it in Ahmednagar Doesnt this amount to private distribution How is this possible Delhi itself is in crisis and facing shortage of Remdesivir injections the court saidChief Justice Datta said if in future the court finds any such person procuring Remdesivir injections from companies and privately distributing them then we will take actionThere has to be equal distribution of the resources available Everybody has to get it the court saidThe bench also directed the BMC to file an affidavit explaining how its helpline number 1916 and other COVID19 war room numbers functionPurohit further informed the court about the unavailability of ICU beds in Mumbai to which the bench asked him to try calling the 1916 helpline numberWhen Purohit called the number and sought an ICU bed for a patient the operator gave him the war room number for the Worli divisionThe war room number operator asked Purohit to send the patients COVID19 reportBMC counsel Anil Sakhare said this was the process followed and a patients report is perused to ascertain if hospitalisation is requiredSakhare told the court that the BMCs dashboard on availability of beds in hospitals is updated every two hoursThe HC said it was not blaming anyone at this stage but authorities should make full utilisation of their resourcesLet us think positively now and move ahead with a positive approach the court saidSakhare told the court that the situation in Mumbai is improving with the number of COVID19 cases reducing and there is supply of oxygen and RemdesivirIn BMC hospitals and COVID19 care centres we do not ask patients or their relatives to procure Remdesivir or any medicine from outside We provide it ourselves Sakhare saidThe bench also permitted the Indian Medical Association Pune division to intervene in the matter and said the association could submit its suggestions on April 29This story has been sourced from a third party syndicated feed agencies Midday accepts no responsibility or liability for its dependability trustworthiness reliability and data of the text Midday managementmiddaycom reserves the sole right to alter delete or remove without notice the content in its absolute discretion for any reason whatsoever