MARGAO
Recalling how he found himself in the midst of ocean of deaths during the second Covid wave in April-May last year, Head of South district hospital mortuary, Associate Professor of Forensic Medicine Dr Madhu S G Ghodkirekar, has made a fervent plea to politicians and political parties to ensure they don’t put the lives of their workers and karyakartas and the people at large at risk during the ensuing polls.
After handling around 800-900 deaths during the second wave last year, Dr Madhu said if the education department can successfully hold online classes for their students, political parties and candidates should work out a system wherein their election messages are forwarded to the voters via social media.
Addressing the media, he said, “It is the moral responsibility of the politicians to take care of their karyakartas and workers. The workers should, in turn, take care of the people by making such arrangements wherein there is big crowd for the meetings,” he said.
Dr Madhu said the South Goa district hospital mortuary preserved around 1200 dead bodies in the last one year. “It was the most difficult time during the second wave. In April and May, we preserved around 700-800 bodies. For three days, we had around 40-plus bodies. Somehow we managed the situation during the peak of the second wave,” he said.
After the commissioning of the 72-unit mortuary at the South district hospital, not a single body was shifted from South district to the North in the last one year. “There may have been an odd autopsy done at the GMC of the body from South Goa in a special case, but bodies by and large were not sent to the GMC, Bambolim mortuary,” he said.
