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KOLKATA: The civic body on Thursday stepped in to solve a problem plaguing families that have lost relatives at home. Due to the Covid scare, they are allegedly being denied death certificates by registered medical practitioners, which is leading to delays in cremation. From Friday, the KMC borough and ward coordinators will have to keep track of every death — both Covid and non-Covid — which may occur at homes within their jurisdictions.
“If a registered medical practitioner refuses to write a death certificate, the ward coordinator will alert the civic authorities. The KMC brass will arrange for a proper post-mortem at a medical college and hospital to enable the family to cremate the deceased,” said Firhad Hakim, chairman, board of administrators governing the KMC. Hakim asked ward coordinators of south Kolkata to report directly to him while ward coordinators from north and central have been told to alert Atin Ghosh, a member of the KMC BOA.
At a meeting at the KMC headquarters on Thursday, Hakim, state home secretary Alapan Bandopadhyay, city police commissioner Anuj Sharma and others took stock of this problem and sought to solve it by roping in the KMC ward coordinators and OCs of local police stations. They interacted with the KMC borough and ward coordinators through a virtual conference.
The coordinators have been asked to take help from OCs of the local police stations in identifying the deceased and help mitigate unjustified protests by locals. A KMC health department official said the recent rows in several places over refusal of physicians to provide death certificates — including at Sahapur in Behala and Topsia — prompted the civic brass to rope in ward coordinators and cops to help families.
Besides taking care of the deceased, the ward coordinators and cops will also need to keep an eye on availability of ambulances to take the serious Covid patients to hospital without delay. “We have interacted with the ward coordinators on this issue and sought their help in arranging ambulances for taking serious Covid-patients to hospital on time,” Bandopadhyay said. Bandopadhyay also laid stress on arranging for hearses. Hakim said the ward coordinators could contact the civic headquarters for ambulances or hearses if they are not available at the ward level.
