THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: A tiny, lifeless body of a three-day-old baby swathed in white clothes lays at a medical college mortuary in Thiruvananthapuram for three days, not wanted by anyone.
The baby’s parents reportedly did not receive the body.
Amid the usual sight of corpses at the mortuary, the sight of a baby pained the staff and they alerted the corporation team in charge of Santhikavadom.
The team arrived at the mortuary and received the body and was cremated at Santhikavadom on Tuesday.
They are keeping the ashes, waiting for someone close to the baby to turn up and take it for the rites.
For the Santhikavadom charge officer, Shaji MS and his team, it has been a deeply moving experience which he recounts on his facebook post.
“For the past one year, we have been receiving and cremating bodies of so many people who died of Covid-19.
With no relatives nearby, we would do whatever we could to bid them an honorable farewell.
But receiving the body of a three-day-old baby after coming to know that the parents didn’t receive the body was emotionally stressful for us,” says Shaji MS.
” We thought the least we could do was to keep the ashes, we hope someone would come for the baby’s ashes,” he says.
When the call came from Medical college, initially, the team thought that it was an unwanted body.
A letter had been handed over to the corporation office four days ago and with Covid burials keeping the staff fully busy, the letter remained buried amidst the booking files.
“The baby was born prematurely and we understand the father had demanded a postmortem and after that the parents didn’t receive the body and it had to be kept at the mortuary,” a corporation official said.
The team had to deal with cremation and transportation of two other babies on Tuesday.
The team got a call from the mayor’s office saying that a couple couldn’t afford money to transport their baby’s body to Varkala from medical college.
The team transported the body to Varkala in a corporation ambulance along with the parents.
For the last few months, I have been receiving calls mostly related to deaths.
So in a way, I was emotionless when I took charge at Santhikavadom.
I had thought death wouldn’t scare me anymore having handled around 250 bodies in the last one year.
But on Tuesday, I lost my sleep after receiving the baby’s body.
Death really hurts.
There was also another small coffin waiting at Santhikavadom.
I saw two parents the same day; one who wouldn’t take their baby home and leave it in the mortuary and another couple who wept all the way home with their baby’s body in ambulance,” Shaji says.