Unattended bodies in another Mumbai hospital embarrass Thackeray government

Shiv Kumar
Tribune News Service
Mumbai, May 11

Videos of unattended bodies at yet another Mumbai hospital have embarrassed the Uddhav Thackeray government.

A video shared by Bharatiya Janata Party MLA Nitesh Rane showed at least three bodies wrapped in blue bags left unattended on beds at the civic-run KEM Hospital.

The video showed patients in neighbouring beds in what Rane claimed was the COVID-19 ward.

“I think the BMC wants us to get used to seeing dead bodies around us while taking treatment because they just don’t want to improve,” he wrote on Twitter.

Rane said the video was shot this morning.

“It is very clear from these videos that Maharashtra is in a mess and completely out of control,” Rane said.

The video comes days after Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray sacked Praveen Pardeshi as the Municipal Commissioner of Mumbai after footage on social media showed unattended bodies beside patients at the civic-run Sion Hospital.

The state government had also transferred the dean of the Sion Hospital.

Iqbal Singh Chahal, who took over from Pardeshi on Saturday evening, ordered bodies of deceased patients to be removed from the COVID-19 ward within 30 minutes.

Later in the day, civic officials said relatives of patients who passed away from the COVID-19 virus were reluctant to accept the bodies thereby making it difficult for their removal from the wards.

“We are investigating the matter,” an official from the KEM Hospital said this afternoon.