Punjab Government on Sunday initiated a ‘free of cost’ mortuary van services in the State.
“All the Government hospitals have been directed to provide mortuary van to family of deceased free of cost,” said the State Health and Family Welfare Minister Brahm Mohindra on Sunday.
He said that a form has to be filled by the attendants to assess and keep in record whether the relatives or attendants of the deceased have adequate arrangement for transporting the dead body.
The Minister also said that it has been brought to the State Government’s notice that till now, there was no provision of providing mortuary van in the State Government hospitals.
“An incident was noticed in Jalandhar around one month ago, when a person carried his father’s dead body on the rehri to go to his residence,” he said.
Adding, he said that after that, “when I enquired the hospital administration about this particular incident and asked as to why hospital didn’t provide vehicle to the family member of deceased, the Hospital administration told that there was no such provision and neither the State Government had ever issued order to provide the vehicle in such cases”.
Taking a serious note of the “unfortunate” incident, Mohindra issued required instructions in this regard to transport the dead body to the residence of the deceased.
In case, the relatives or attendants of the dead person inform that they don’t have adequate arrangements, financial assistance up to Rs 500 would also be given to the family for making arrangement for carrying the dead body from the outside (private operator), he added.
Mohindra said that in all the cases, a new white sheet ‘free of cost’ for wrapping the dead would also be ensured. “This would also be applicable in case of unclaimed dead bodies brought by the police for postmortem,” he said.
All expenses, that is financial assistance as well as cost of bed sheet, would be borne from out of the user charges of the hospital, he said adding that in case, the hospital do not have adequate user charges, the funds would be provided from the emergency revolving fund of the PHSC on the reimbursement bases but immediately expenses have got to be made by the hospital.
Mohindra said that he believed that the State Government’s ambitious move will also inspire other States to take action regarding availability of mortuary van in Government hospitals.