Sunday night in Chennai, the friends and family of Dr Simon Hercules were faced with violence and protests as they tried to bury the doctor who died of COVID-19. An unfortunate mix of fear, panic and ignorance had led the people who lived around the cemetery to attack the doctor’s family and friends, raising serious concerns that information around COVID-19 wasn’t being communicated properly to citizens. And around the same time that Dr Simon’s burial was disrupted, the family of a 20-year-old man in Erode’s Nambiyur Panchayat Town faced a similar, heartbreaking situation.
Mohammed Bilal, a 20-year-old with a congenital disability, a resident of Nambiyur, passed away due to liver failure on Sunday. Bilal suffered from health issues since he was a child, and on Saturday, he developed breathing difficulties and was rushed to a private hospital nearby. The doctors there had said that he needed additional care, and the family then took him to the Erode Government Hospital.
“The doctor kept him under observation at the ICU for a day. Once his conditions improved, he was shifted to the normal ward around 12 noon on Sunday. But within an hour Bilal developed breathing difficulties and succumbed,” says Bilal’s uncle, Mohammad Shahjahan.
In Bilal’s case, fear, panic and ignorance had a new friend: Bigotry. Though he had not been diagnosed with COVID-19, rumours spread in his village that he died because of the communicable disease. “Some people started spreading the hoax that he died of COVID-19,” Shahjahan alleges, “and people panicked in our village. We took his body around 6 pm, but were forced to park 6 km away from our home village, because people were protesting against burying his body there.”
The protest by the public opposing a space for burying the corpse went on for 6 hours, as the family waited with Bilal’s body in an ambulance, 6 km away. The protesters did not disperse despite police assurances; according to Shahjahan, they said they would dig his body back up even if managed to bury him there.
So by midnight, Shahjahan decided to appeal for help. “I took a picture of the ambulance and sent it to the people of the Jamat, explaining what was happening. Help started pouring in from all sides, and finally, we decided to bury him in the dead of the night, at 3 am, in Gobichettipalayam,” Shahjahan explains. Gobichettipalayam is 17 to 20 km away from Nambiyur.
“Even after all this I am scared if the people in our village will isolate us,” Shajahan says.
Dr Simon Hercules in Chennai; Bilal in Erode. A man who died of COVID-19, and a man who’s death had nothing to do with the disease. A complete denial of empathy driven by blind fear in two cases – however, critics have questioned the role of the government in creating awareness even more, because they were not the first ones to face this situation.
On April 13, another doctor was denied a burial in Chennai’s Ambattur. The 62-year-old from Andhra was admitted in Chennai, and was suspected to have COVID-19. But the people around the cemetery in Ambattur blocked his burial over fears that COVID-19 would spread to their families if his body was buried there.
His body was later brought back to the same cemetery for burial.
Doctors meanwhile are urging people to understand that dead people cannot spread COVID-19, and there is no reason to worry as long as all safety precautions are taken.
Speaking to TNM, V Ramasubramanian, Infectious Disease Specialist in Chennai at Apollo Hospitals says, “There is 0% chance of spread of infection from a dead person. The dead person will not sneeze or cough to act as a carrier of the virus.”
Stating that the virus can stay active only for a few minutes in the body, he says, “The Ministry of Health and Family Welfare has given clear recommendations on handling a dead body of a patient who died due to COVID-19. The recommendations involve ensuring that the fluid doesn’t leak out.”
Explaining the precautions that should be taken, the doctor says, “The body shouldn’t be subject to washing or other rites which are normally performed because the body fluids will otherwise pose a risk. However as long as the recommendations are followed, which is being performed by the Corporation and Public Health Department, and if the body is packed, it can be either buried or cremated. There is absolutely no risk.”
Guidelines given by the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare for burial/cremation of coronavirus patients explain the different steps to be followed before burial/cremation:
1. The body should be kept in a body bag, the exterior of which should be decontaminated. Once this is done, there is no additional risk to the people who transport the body.
2. The people handling the body should follow standard precautions that many of us are following in everyday life – this includes wearing a surgical mask and gloves.
3. The vehicle, after the transfer of the body to cremation/burial staff, should be decontaminated with 1% Sodium Hypochlorite.
1. The crematorium/burial ground staff should be sensitised that COVID-19 does not pose any additional risk.
2. The staff should practice standard precautions of hand hygiene, use of masks and gloves.
3. Viewing of the dead body by unzipping the face end of the body bag (by the staff using standard precautions) can be allowed, so that the family can see the deceased one last time.
4. Religious rituals such as reading from religious scripts, sprinkling holy water and any other last rites that do not require touching of the body can be allowed. However, bathing the body, kissing, hugging, etc. of the dead body should not be allowed.
5. The funeral/ burial staff and family members should perform hand hygiene after cremation/ burial.