Even as West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee decided to celebrate 1st July as Doctor’s Day on former state Chief Minister Dr Bidhan Chandra Roy’s birth and death anniversary, a shocking incident has come to light amidst the COVID-19 pandemic.
The apathy of the health and civic authorities has come to light after the dead body of a 70-year-old COVID-19 victim was found lying in a residence on Amherst Street for about 44 hours after the man’s death. The residents of the building arranged for a makeshift fridge to keep the body.
The man had died around 3:00pm on Monday. Since then, the Mullick family which resides on the 4th floor of a building has tried to contact the police station once, the health department and the Kolkata Municipal Corporation. However, no one reached out to help the family following which the body began to decompose. Later, on Tuesday the family collected a fridge with great difficulty. The initiative to take the body by health department authorities was taken on Wednesday morning.
“A COVID-19 test was done on Monday for Mr. Mullick and the test results came positive on Tuesday night. We informed the Police and the administration. Neither did anyone come from the state administration, nor did anyone give us guidelines. We waited the entire Tuesday night and Wednesday morning, a vehicle has come now to take the body. My question is, we contacted the administration yesterday at 9:00 pm. There are elderly persons, children in this building, the Mullick family has been using the lift, the building has been infected,” said a resident of the building Raj Gupta, who also lamented on how they have got no guidelines as yet nor has there been any indication of the rest of the families in the building being tested.
Meanwhile, most of the other members of the Mullick family has also tested positive for COVID-19 and are unable to leave their homes. The family, however, appears to be asymptomatic. No one from the KMC or health department has given the family guidelines as well on what is to be done.
