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As it makes arrangements for about 16,500 beds in private medical colleges in the State and at the Gachibowli Stadium in Hyderabad, the Telangana government has released guidelines on how to dispose of the bodies that succumbed to Covid-19.
The guidelines mandates how a body should be wrapped, how the kin should view the body, how it should be transported, how the cremation should take place, and how the disposables should be incinerated.
Special cremation centres
A committee has recommended special cremation centres or special enclosures at the existing facilities with separate entrance and exits.
The kin will be allowed to have a last glimpse only through a glass partition window with separate entry and exit. Not more than five people will be allowed at any point of time in the enclosure. No direct contact of doctors, nurses, and medical staff will be allowed with relatives.
The Government Order on guidelines called for setting up of exclusive rooms to prepare the bodies for disposal. It asked for stocking of PPE (personal protection equipment) kits for six people for every ‘Covid’ body.
Each PPE kit will include N95 masks, surgical cap, protective goggles, water resistant apron, surgical gloves, full shoes with thigh level plastic covers, and face shields as per specification.
The GO called for stocking up of body bags, about 10 per cent of the total number of patients in a designated hospital, at all times.
The containers that carry the equipment, the disposables for incineration and the vehicles that carry the body to the crematorium should carry special markings.
Handling the body
Given the highly contagious nature of the virus, the order lists in minute detail how to prepare the body for cremation – how to give a body shower with water mixed with disinfectant, draping it in a plastic sheet, and then wrapping it up with a white cotton cloth and keeping the body inside a zipped up body bag.
Only after this procedure will the body be transported to the cremation facility. Only five family members will be allowed to carry out the last rites.
A liaison officer will be the only contact person for all the assistance. He will give five disposable masks and a sanitizer bottle to the kin.
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