Woman wish unfulfilled - Hospital lacks infrastructure to deal with body donation

Krishna Majumdar

TT, Raiganj, Nov. 4: Krishna Majumdar's family could not keep her pledge to donate her body as the Raiganj district hospital is not equipped to handle such cases.

The only saving grace for the 62-year-old homemaker's family was that her cornea could be used for transplant.

Sources said it was the first time that the district hospital here had come across a case of body donation and the officials did not know the procedure, although around 2,000 people in South Dinajpur had pledged to donate their bodies.

Majumdar had been admitted to the hospital with a heart condition on October 21.

Around 8am yesterday, she died at the Critical Care Unit.

"My mother had pledged her eyes and body around 20 years ago and I also followed suit. After she passed away, we informed the hospital about her pledge. We were told that they could do nothing about it. They took her cornea before handing over the body to us," said Suvankar.

Majumdar had pledged to donate her body to the North Bengal Medical College and Hospital in Siliguri, around 185km from here.

"We would have been happy if my mother's wish was fulfilled. We waited till the evening and then cremated her. We are very disappointed as we wanted the hospital to contact the medical college so that we could take the body and donate it there," Suvankar said.

Raiganj hospital superintendent Gautam Mondol said: "We have no infrastructure to cater for those who want to donate bodies. We have an eye bank and the deceased's cornea has been collected."

When an individual pledges to donate his or her body to a medical college, the person gets a certificate. After the person's death, a hospital has to issue a death certificate and papers to help the family move the body to the medical college concerned. Once the body and the papers reach the medical college, the authorities take charge of the body and issue a certificate to the family.

Donated bodies are mostly used for medical research.

South Dinajpur district magistrate Ayesha Rani said: "The district hospital should have contacted the medical college and made arrangements to send the body there. This incident will disappoint those who have pledged their bodies. I have asked the hospital superintendent for a report."

Raiganj hospital caters for 3,000-odd patients every day.

Subrata Sarkar, the north Bengal secretary of West Bengal Voluntary Blood Donor's Forum, said: "About 2,000 people (in the district) have pledged bodies in the past 20 years. The hospital should have issued the required papers."