PMC issues guidelines for disposing of COVID-19 victims' bodies

Mumbai, Sep 04: Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC) issued guidelines for disposing of bodies of COVID-19 patients who die at home.

"There have been a few Covid-19 deaths at home. Till now, there has been no proper system in place for the disposal of bodies as per protocol and there have been a lot of problems. Relatives of people who die from Covid infection at home face problems in disposing of the dead while civic staff do not know how to handle such cases for cremation. So, the guidelines have been issued for relatives and ward medical officers for disposing of the bodies," said Srinivas Kandul, Chief Engineer at PMC.

Check out the guidelines

• The relatives should inform the ward medical officer of the respective ward office, PMC stated.
• They should apply for a cremation pass through an online facility and should wear PPE kit while loading the body of the deceased in the ambulance, PMC added.
• Relatives of the deceased should apply for a cremation pass through an online facility by registering the information and uploading documents.
• They should wear a Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) kit and put the body in the bag provided by the ward medical officer and load it in the ambulance.
• The ward medical officer should post the information of the deceased in the WhatsApp group of civic staff, 'Covid Cremation', and hand over the PPE kit as well as body bag to the relatives of the deceased.
• Civic staff should disinfect the house and the nearby area and book a vehicle for transporting the body for cremation.
• The PMC has decided to provide cold storage cabins at the crematoriums.
• It provided two cold storage cabins at each of the crematoriums to keep the bodies if any are awaiting cremation. Till now, a body used to remain in an ambulance at the crematorium waiting for its turn. This also made ambulances unavailable for transporting other Covid-19 bodies.
• In case of a Covid-19 death at a hospital, the hospital has to get a cremation pass through an online facility, prepare the body and transport it to the crematorium via its available vehicle or request the PMC Transport Cell to provide a vehicle.
• The PMC has allocated a dedicated vehicle for each of the crematoriums to bring bodies.
• The driver of the vehicle, with the help of deputed persons at the crematorium wearing PPE kits, will take the body out of the vehicle.
• Those deputed for disposing of Covid-19 bodies at a crematorium will be responsible to keep the body in a cold storage cabin if there is already an earlier body being cremated, and will disinfect the cabin, ambulance and nearby area after disposing of the body.

Notably, The PMC is registering at least 50 Covid-19 deaths every day, including 10 from outside the city limits.