COVID-19 Stigma: Ambulance turns into temporary mortuary

Hyderabad: The fear and stigma associated with COVID continue unabated and there seems to be no end. On Saturday, around 9 pm – a city-based NGO received a call to move a dead body of a senior citizen suspected to have died of COVID-19 from a private hospital in Mehdipatnam.

Apparently, the hospital did not allow the dead body to be kept at the hospital and the apartment where the lady lived also did not allow the body to be brought inside the apartment. The grave which was being dug, was taking more thanthe usual time due to the continuous rains pounding the city on Friday evening. 

Left with no choice, the Helping Hand Foundation (HHF) decided to keep the body in the ambulance till the grave is ready for burial. HHF’s ambulance driver E. Pradeep, stayed through the night till early morning to hand over the body for final rights without blinking an eye.

Apparently, this was the second case in the last few months where an ambulance was used for mortuary services in the pandemic. 

“We salute our COVID Warriors who are working uninterruptedly for the past six months in providing much-needed relief to the people of the city regardless of caste or creed in acute distress,” said Mujataba Hasan Askari of HHF.