Yesterday, this paper carried a report about how a family suffered after a 44-year-old Mulund resident was declared brain dead at a city hospital. His family decided to donate his organs. Their well-meaning decision was repaid with a harrowing ordeal that lasted five and a half hours, before medical and police officers would complete the procedure and allow them to take their loved one’s body home.

It was when the family visited a civil hospital to complete the organ donation procedure and paperwork with the mandatory post-mortem and NOC from the police, that they were truly tested. A muddle about paperwork and ignorance that follows after a cadaver donation complicated matters. One staffer took three hours to fill out a simple form, claimed a relative. They also claimed that the police were unaware of the procedure.