Unclaimed bodies buried on hospital premises

Burials flout unclaimed bodies management regulations
KATHMANDU, April 13: After retaining unclaimed bodies at the TU Teaching Hospital mortuary for more than 11 months in the wake of the deadly earthquake last year that claimed over 9,000 lives, the hospital administration has buried the bodies within the hospital premises.

The District Dead Bodies Management Committee has proposed various sites, including Thapathali, Kirtipur and Shivapuri National Park, for the burial of the unidentified dead, but locals opposed the burials.

Nepal Police officials under the supervision of Kathmandu District Administration Office failed to find a proper place for burials, compelling the hospital to bury the bodies in contravention of the unclaimed bodies management regulations that were prepared by the government itself.

"We waited months for the families concerned to identify the bodies, and once the mortuary became overloaded we had no options left than to bury the bodies at the hospital premises," said Dr Harihar Wasti, chief of Forensic Department at TUTH, Maharajgunj.

Hospital staff carving the trench where the quake-killed-unidentified bodies were buried last month.

The bodies should be disposed of in a manner that is dignified, culturally appropriate and also based on good public health practices, according to international norms.

The Dead Bodies Management Directives 2068 state that graveyards must be at least 500 meters from human settlements and 200 meters from groundwater or drinking water sources.

However, the hospital buried the bodies right next to garbage sites in a 50 by 60 meter open area. "We first evacuated any bones remained from unclaimed bodies from the past and refilled the trench with the unclaimed bodies and body parts along with their metal identity tags," Dr Wasti said.

Unless the government makes it mandatory for all hospitals to dispose of unclaimed bodies within a certain time limit, the problem is not going to be solved, hospital officials said. They said they could allow unclaimed bodies to be kept in their mortuaries only for a few weeks, as body tissues start deteriorating, making disposal more problematic.

Finding no proper burial sites, the hospital has been discarding old bones and skulls to make way for news ones. A few of these are used by anatomy students in medical colleges.

Before burying the bodies, samples are preserved for a longer period for future DNA analysis.

"We have no alternative unless we let the unclaimed bodies pile up," Dr Wasti said.

But Kathmandu Chief District Officer Ram Krishna Subedi said the government is working to manage the problem.

"For security reasons, we buried the unclaimed dead bodies in the hospital premises so that we can retreive them within a given time limit," he said.

The number of unclaimed bodies till a few weeks back was over 32.

Two weeks back a body was brought from Langtang, an area devasted by last year's earthquake, and another body brought from the same area turned out to be an animal carcass.

Each body buried is given a specific number and is identified on the basis of finger prints, DNA samples, specific body marks, samples of clothing and ornaments and the location where it was recovered.