COVID-19: BMC to probe viral video showing patients lying next to dead bodies at Sion hospital

As COVID-19 cases in Mumbai continue to spike, civic body BMC on Thursday constituted a committee to investigate a viral video that showed COVID-19 patients lying next to dead bodies at the city's Sion Hospital.

The video was shared by BJP leader Nitesh Rane among others.

Mumbai is the worst-affected city in the country with over 10,527 coronavirus cases and the death toll of 412. Mumbai alone accounts for 19.89% of the COVID-19 cases in India. Opposition BJP has attacked the Maha Vikas Aghadi government led by Uddhav Thackeray over the handling of COVID-19 crisis in the state that has recorded 16,758 cases and 651 deaths.

In the video shared by Rane, it can be seen that there are several dead bodies lying on hospital beds. There are patients on beds next to those dead bodies.

"In Sion hospital..patients r sleeping next to dead bodies!!! This is the extreme..what kind of administration is this," Rane said in his tweet.

Speaking on the matter, former Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis said in a tweet, "Sion Hospital incident is extremely serious and shocking. Patients which are being treated are lying beside dead bodies. This is utterly inhuman. Is there no one to care for Mumbai?"

He added, "Govt must immediately look into this & ensure that it doesn’t happen ever again."

Congress leader Milind Deora was also among those who shared the video and questioned the BMC for not following the WHO’s prescribed protocols for disposing of bodies of coronavirus victims.

“Outraged to see corpses laid beside the sick at Sion Hospital. Why isn’t @mybmc following @WHO -prescribed protocols when disposing of #COVID?19 corpses?” he tweeted.

He added, "Public hospital staff are doing their best with limited resources at hand. Mumbai’s administration needs to step up NOW!"

The committee constituted by the Brihanmummbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) will submit its report within 24 hours.

As per the finding of reports action will be taken against the guilty, the BMC said in a statement. The civic body will ensure that no such incidents happen, the statement said.

The statement further said that the BMC had already issued a circular according to which all the dead bodies of COVID-19 patients and of suspected COVID-19 should be hand over to relatives in next 30 minutes of death. However, in many cases it has been observed that relatives are not available and they deliberately delay in accepting the bodies, it added.