Greater Chennai Corporation has decided to streamline COVID death management process to prevent cremations from becoming "super spreader events" and avoid any delay in bodies reaching crematorium.
A meeting of forensic medicine experts, representatives of the Red Cross and civic officials was held in Ripon Buildings on Tuesday, to make the system more efficient during the pandemic.
Senior officials have directed the public health officials to divert bodies to other crematoriums in the event of any crowding of cremations at any of the facilities. A centralised system of allocation of dead bodies for cremation in various burial grounds in the city has been proposed. Officials have also been asked to resolve the issue of safe cremation of COVID negative dead bodies who had actually been admitted to hospitals after testing positive for COVID.
Many crematoriums reported a sudden increase in the number of cremations on Tuesday and some patients who died at private hospitals on Tuesday have been directed to be cremated on Wednesday because of crowding of dead bodies. For instance, a crematorium which registered a decrease from 30 per day to 18 on Monday, registered 32 cremations on Tuesday.
Some of the equipment at crematoriums which were repaired recently have malfunctioned again. Crematoriums such as Arumbakkam and Nungambakkam have not cremated bodies because of malfunctioning of the equipment.
Officials have also suggested manual mode of cremation in abandoned burial grounds to prevent any delay in cremation of the dead bodies.
But residents in various neighborhoods have opposed the move to adopt manual mode of cremation of dead bodies because of pollution of the residential areas.
