The mortuary at a government hospital here handed over the body of a baby in a cardboard carton much to the shock of the father, who struggled in vain to save his child during the floods last week.
The incident drew spontaneous criticism from several quarters prompting the hospital authorities to suspend a staff at the mortuary for negligence.
A senior official at the Kilpauk Medical College Hospital on Monday said an inquiry has been ordered into the incident.
"I accepted the corpse given to me in a cardboard box on December 10 and took it to be laid to rest at the mosque with the help of volunteers," Masood Basha of Pulianthope said.
As he opened the box to bury the body he was shocked to see the stillborn child without being wrapped in a white shroud. "I had to obtain a white cloth, wrapped the body, and laid her to rest," Basha said.
A traumatised Basha said, "I couldn't save her... I didn't have the money to even bury the child. I cannot blame anyone except my misfortune."
Recalling his efforts to save his child, he told media that his wife Sowmya developed preterm labour pains on December 6 at 11 am. He couldn't manage to get an ambulance to rush his wife to a hospital due to inundation and poor mobile connectivity, he said.
By the time he could arrange a vehicle to take her to a hospital, his wife delivered a stillborn baby at home. His initial attempt to seek medical assistance from a private hospital did not yield any result due to power failure.
He managed to take the mother and baby to the Kilpauk Medical College hospital with the help of the police. At the GH, the doctors confirmed that a stillborn girl child was delivered, and later sent the body to the mortuary.
Slamming the ruling DMK for the negligence, BJP Tamil Nadu chief K Annamalai said the once sought-after medical infrastructure in the country has today hit rock bottom under the DMK rule.
There were no ambulances to take his wife to the hospital on time and later, the body of his baby were handed over in a carton box by a Government Hospital in Chennai, he said.
"The State Government should realise that brushing this aside by announcing compensation or a namesake suspension is not an answer to the agony faced by people dependent on Government hospitals, and constructive steps to improve medical infra are the need of the hour," Mr Annamalai said in a post on the social media platform X.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
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