Who is accountable for allowing the bodies to rot outside on the Nishtar hospital rooftop?
The footage that went viral on social media of dead bodies rotting on the roof of Multan’s Nishtar Hospital has shocked the entire country. The medical center, however, declined to accept responsibility and moved the burden onto the cops.
Following reports of unidentified bodies left to rot on the hospital’s rooftop, the vice chancellor of Nishtar Medical University and the Punjab government established separate committees.
Dr. Mariam Ashraf, head of the anatomy department at Nishtar Medical University (NMU), said during a Friday appearance on the Geo News programme “Aaj Shahzeb Khanzada Kay Sath” that the police and rescue departments are primarily to blame for the bodies piling up on the hospital’s rooftop and in the morgue.
She claimed that in most cases, the bodies are given to the hospital for storage by the police and rescue personnel. She added that the hospital cannot refuse to accept them because it is required by law to do so.
“The police and rescue personnel do not return them on schedule. We have requested that they take the bodies in written paperwork. Such things do occur because of the lag,” the official said.
“The bodies that the hospital receives from the police are typically deteriorated and cannot be retained in the mortuary,” according to the hospital official.
“As a result of their state, maggots begin to consume them; they are capable of moving from one body to another. Because of this, there are three rooms on the roof where decomposing bodies are housed.”
When questioned about the non-governmental organization’s function, she complimented Edhi Foundation but also accused them of failing to return the dead.
“Since they don’t have any burial space in their cemetery, the Edhi Foundation hasn’t been taking up dead from our hospital,” she explained.
The only reason the dead are being kept on the roof, according to her, is because of the massive influx and the fact that not enough of them are going back to the police stations as they ought to.
The hospital representative disproved rumors that there were 200 or more dead on the rooftop and stated that the administration of the medical facility had tallied the precise number of bodies and shared the information with the relevant authorities.
“Let me be clear, there were only a few bodies held upstairs. In the room, putrified bodies are preserved.”
According to Ashraf, the bodies that the police give to the hospital are kept in the morgue for a month and then sent back to the police for burial if no one comes forward to claim them.
“The abandoned bodies that we receive are typically already significantly decomposed. We adhere to all SOPs, and we accept rotting bodies as well.”
In the event that we require bodily components, we handle them appropriately.
She responded to a query on the non-operational morgues by stating that the hospital management and the Secretary of Health had met at the Punjab Secondary Healthcare and Medical Education Department.
A new morgue for the hospital was approved at the meeting, along with financing for the construction of special buildings to house the dead.
When it comes to accepting such bodies, “Our institute bears the lion’s share of the province’s load.”
The anchorperson questioned whether bodies would not be dumped on rooftops to rot in the open since the number of dead arriving at the hospital is too large and the mortuary is beyond capacity. She responded, “Yes, you’re right,” in response.
She stated that the hospital would renovate the unique infrastructure where these human remains would be maintained and would not retain the extremely decomposed dead in the general mortuary.
The journalist then pressed the hospital representative, asking which of the numerous explanations she would stick to for the incident—blaming the rescue workers, the police, holding the remains for medical students, and the institution’s lack of capacity.
The hospital representative again criticized police and rescue personnel but did not provide a clear explanation.
She deftly sidestepped Khanzada’s curveball when he urged her to provide the number to the public, responding: “I am not at liberty to publish that figure at this time. When I can, I’ll let you know directly.”
Additionally, Ashraf denied the accusations that there were numerous bodies on the roof and stated that not all of them were complete because autopsied remains were also present.
She stated that because the autopsied bodies aren’t whole and sometimes don’t have their organs and limbs linked, they appear to be a collection of human body parts.
“Those surgically disfigured bodies gave the appearance that there were many of them there.”
These were the abandoned bodies that the police had turned over to the hospital as required by law, according to Punjab Police Spokesperson DIG Muhammad Waqas Nazir.
He informed Khanzada that “teaching hospitals exploit the bodies for various purposes.”
The hospital acknowledged in a letter to the secretary of specialized healthcare in South Punjab that bodies were kept there for decomposition and that, after the process was complete, their bones were to be used for educational purposes. He rejected the hospital’s claims.
However, the remains were left on the rooftop in the open due to the hospital staff’s incompetence, Nazir continued.
Faisal Edhi of the Edhi Foundation told Khanzada about the incident and claimed that “the Nishtar Hospital preserves corpses to train pupils.”
He continued by saying that the police, not Nishtar Hospital, were the ones who sent the remains to his group.
“The police provide advice on whether the body should be temporarily buried or preserved. For the record, we take a picture of the abandoned dead body,” Edhi said.
He claimed that after identification and requesting permission from the police, the bodies are given.
We phoned Nishtar Hospital today to arrange the burial, according to Edhi, who insisted that they were not refused.
He added that over the course of the previous 11 months, the organization has buried 155 bodies.
Dr. Seemin Jamali, a former executive director of Jinnah Postgraduate Medical Center, expressed her sorrow by saying that she had never witnessed a situation in which abandoned bodies were left on a rooftop to be dried for teaching purposes.
After a postmortem, abandoned bodies are given to either Edhi or Chipa, she said to Khanzada.
The former JPMC official claimed that after the hospitals turned over the remains, welfare organizations buried them.
She also disclosed that fresh corpses were used to teach medical students since dead bodies stink.
According to Tariq Zaman Gujjar, advisor to the chief minister of Punjab, information concerning the dead bodies on the mortuary’s roof at Nishtar Hospital came from a tip from a whistleblower.
When a man remarked to me, “If you want to perform a good deed, go the morgue and check it out,” Gujjar said he was on a visit to Nishtar Hospital.
He claimed that when he got there, the staff wasn’t prepared to open the mortuary’s doors. Gujjar continued, I said to this, if you don’t open it right now, I’m going to file an FIR against you.
He claimed that when the morgue finally opened and they entered, they discovered at least 200 dead scattered all over the place. “[Men and women’s] rotting bodies were all naked. Even female bodies were exposed.”
Gujjar claimed that when he asked them (the physicians) to explain what was happening, they explained that these were being used by the medical students as teaching tools.
“Are these bodies for sale”? I inquired with the mortuary staff.
Gujjar claimed that when he asked doctors to clarify the occurrence, they replied that it was not what it appeared to be because these were being used by medical students for educational purposes.
“Two of the bodies on the roof were a little bit decomposing when I found them. They were covered in maggots,” Gujjar stated.
In his fifty years of existence, he claimed he had never witnessed anything like that.
The bodies on the roof were being scavenged by vultures and worms. Our count indicated that there were at least 35 remains on the mortuary’s rooftop.
The victims should have had a dignified burial following Namaz-e-Janaza, but instead, they were tossed on the roof, according to Gujjar.
