Civil Hospital, Ludhiana, will soon get one more mortuary. It is one of the major government hospitals of the district and for the population of 40 lakh people, its mortuary was proving inadequate. All autopsies and medico-legal cases are handled at the Civil Hospital. With the new mortuary, the total capacity will be raised to 105.
The existing mortuary can accommodate 55 bodies and the new mortuary will be able to accommodate 50 bodies, so the capacity will become almost double.
The construction of the new mortuary will be undertaken by the Samvedna Trust and is expected to be completed in three months. The existing mortuary was also built by it.
Subhash Gupta, chairman of the trust, said the planning had been done and the work for setting up of the new mortuary had already started and it was expected to be completed in three months’ time.
“Many problems are being faced in the old mortuary and the same will be kept in mind during the construction of the second one. The old mortuary was also constructed by our trust in 2016. The foremost problem was the rainwater entering the mortuary. Not to let the new mortuary face the similar issue, we have kept the mortuary 6 feet higher than the ground level. A total of Rs 35 lakh will be incurred on the construction of the new mortuary,” Gupta said.
Unidentified bodies will be kept in the old mortuary while corpses received by the hospital on a routine basis will be kept in the new mortuary. No fee is charged for bodies kept for autopsies while for others, a minimal amount of Rs 100 per day is charged.
A doctor from the hospital said there was a dire need for a new mortuary as the existing was unable to bear the load of the entire district.