Magazine of June - 2010 - Rups.net

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Hebal Centre 4 pages32Vol. 91, No.6, June 2010Kanara Saraswat
Body Donation is easy!Ra j e s h Ha l d i p u r, Th a n eMy mother passed away on a Saturdayafternoon.In deference to her oft-expressed wishes, mysister and I decided to donate her body for medicalresearch, despite some personal misgivings,especially about whether there would be a dignifiedtreatment of her remains. As such, there wouldnecessarily be no "funeral" or cremation, if thiswere to happen.We had never thought of how to implementher wishes, but these were our first thoughts whenwe were forced to come face-to-face with her notbeing with us any more. We knew that the eyesneeded to be donated first, so we located an eyebank in Thane with the help of the nursing home.A doctor with his assistant arrived within the halfhour,during which we elevated my mother's headand placed wet cotton wool on her eyelids.We then asked about body donation, but noone seemed to know. We talked to three doctorswhom we knew. One of them phoned up thecoroner in Rajawadi Hospital and we were toldthat JJ Hospital is the place to go. But then, weremembered the big ruckus that had happenedwhen one of our former neighbours had passedaway at his place of work in Mumbai, and his bodywas brought to neighbouring Thane for cremation.No one allowed the cremation to take place inThane because he had died in Mumbai. We wereaverse to having jurisdictional issues to deal with.A second doctor told us the same, but athird doctor spoke to his friend in Rajiv GandhiMedical College attached to the ChhatrapatiShivaji Memorial Hospital in Kalwa (within theThane Municipal Corporation limits) and wewere told the usual procedure, and the ‘exception’procedure because it was a Saturday afternoonand the medical college would be closed, whichwas to deposit the body in the morgue and actuallycomplete the donation formalities on Mondaymorning. We decided that this seemed the mostpromising alternative which we would investigatefirst. We also decided between ourselves that wewould have a normal funeral if we encountered toomuch bureaucracy.Since we decided to wait for three hours formy aunt to arrive from Pune to have a last lookat her younger sister, during this time, there werediscussions - and more misgivings. One persontold us that the body would decompose over theweekend, as there were probably no proper storagefacilities. Another told us that they will refuse thedonation because the donation request was not preregisteredwith the medical college. Then, anotherperson asked if it was not possible to only donatea few organs so that the rest of the body could becremated? A fourth said, why go to all this trouble?In any case, body donation is not part of Hinduculture, so why not just go ahead and call a priest?The funeral rites require ashes, and here there willbe no ashes. And so on.... I am recording all thesemisgivings because these are issues that would beraised in the case of almost anyone proposing todo this.The procedure, as it turned out, was simple:We were to go to the Casualty Department, meetthe Casualty Medical Officer, and he would guideus about the rest of the procedure. We did that,and Dr. Gangwani, the CMO on duty, told usthat we would have to pay Rs.100 for two days ofrenting a controlled temperature compartment inthe mortuary to store the body. On making thatpayment, the morgue would accept and store thebody. (That was more than one misgiving out ofthe way). We told him that we would be back in acouple of hours, and hurried back to the nursinghome. Later that evening, we gave a copy of thedeath certificate, paid the fee, and on the strengthof that receipt, got an entry made in the BodiesReceived Register maintained by Security, andwere allowed to deposit the body in the mortuary,which was surprisingly clean and odor-free exceptfor a certain staleness due to its being closed. Thiswhole process took no more than 20 minutes. Ittook longer than that for all those who accompanied(Contd. on page 37)Kanara Saraswat Vol. 91, No.6, June 2010 33
Page 5 and 6: From thePresident’s Desk .....The
Page 7 and 8: Kanara Saraswat Vol. 91, No.6, June
Page 9 and 10: OUR COVERwww.kanarasaraswat.in - Ar
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