An off official at the Nishtar Hospital has blamed police and rescue officials for the bodies found decaying on the rooftop of the medical facility.
Videos of unclaimed and decomposed bodies were earlier circulated on social media which had left the people in awe.
After the news surfaced, the Punjab government and the Nishtar Medical University’s vice-chancellor have formed separate committees to probe the matter.
Talking to Geo, Nishtar Medical University’s (NMU) Head of Anatomy Department Dr Mariam Ashraf blamed rescue officials and police for the piling up of the bodies in the morgue and on its rooftop.
She said that the medical facility could not refuse to accept the bodies as police and rescue officials continue to bring unidentified and unclaimed bodies.
She said that police and rescue officials never take them back despite sending them reminders.
The hospital official said the bodies that the medical facility receives from police were usually decomposed and they cannot be kept in the mortuary and such decaying bodies were kept in three rooms on the rooftop.
Ashraf said that the only reason for keeping the bodies on the roof was that their influx was huge and they were not taken back by the police.
She rubbished the claim that over 200 bodies were lying on the rooftop, saying that the administration has counted the bodies and shared the details with all authorities concerned.
She said: “Let me make it clear, only a few bodies were kept above. Putrified bodies are kept in the room.”
Ashraf said that the bodies handed over to the hospital by police were kept in the morgue for a month and in case no one shows up to claim them, the hospital sends them back to the police for burial.
“Usually, the abandoned bodies that we receive are already decomposed to an increased extent. We follow all our SOPs, we do not refuse to take decayed bodies as well.”
She said that in case we need body parts from the body, then we treat them accordingly.
Answering a question about the nonfunctional morgues, she said a new mortuary was sanctioned for the hospital for keeping the unclaimed bodies.
Meanwhile, Punjab Police Spokesperson DIG Muhammad Waqas Nazir admitted that these were the abandoned bodies handed over to the hospital by the police, which is the requirement of the law.
He said that teaching hospitals use the bodies for different purposes.
In a letter to the secretary of specialised healthcare South Punjab, the hospital admitted that bodies were stored on the rooftop of the facility for decomposing and after completion of the process, their bones were to use for education purposes, he said.
However, due to the negligence of the hospital’s staff, the bodies were kept in the open air on the rooftop, Nazir added.
Earlier, Adviser to Chief Minister Punjab Tariq Zaman Gujjar said a whistleblower tipped him about the rotting bodies on the roof of the hospital.
He said when he reached there the staff did not open the doors of the mortuary but he finally opened it when he was told that an FIR against him will be lodged.
He said when the morgue was opened, he found at least 200 bodies lying around. He said that all the decomposing bodies [of both men and women] were bare and not covered.
Gujjar said when he asked doctors to explain what was going on they said these were used by the medical students for educational purposes.
He said that two of the bodies on the roof were rather in the early stages of decomposition and maggots were all over them.
He said he had never seen anything like that in his 50 years of life as vultures and worms were scavenging on the corpses on the roof. He said that their tally showed there were at least 35 bodies on the rooftop of the mortuary.
Gujjar said that the bodies after being used for medical education purposes should have been given a proper burial after Namaz-e-Janaza, but they were thrown on the roof.
