Aurangabad: In an incident that took place in Beed, Maharashtra, on Sunday, 22 dead bodies of COVID victims were reportedly being transported to a crematorium in a single ambulance. Responding to the incident, the district administration cited “shortage of medical transport vehicles is the reason for this”, they said.

The incident took place on Sunday when the bodies of COVID victims, which was placed in the mortuary of Swami Ramananda Tirtha Rural Government Medical College in Ambajogai, Beed, were being transported to the crematorium for final rites, it is learned.

There are not enough ambulances in this hospital. There were five ambulances in the hospital when COVID’s first wave appeared last year. Later, three were withdrawn. “The remaining two ambulances are currently operating to transport COVID patients,” the Dean of the Medical College, Dr. Shivaji Sorake told the news agency on Tuesday.
‘There are no mortuary rooms in the COVID centre in the adjoining Lokhandi Savargaon village to store the dead bodies. Because of this, corpses are sent to this hospital from there. Thus, on March 17th, a letter was sent to the district administration asking them to provide three more ambulances to the hospital”, He said.

“To avoid this mess, a letter has been written to the Ambajogai Municipal Council to conduct a funeral from 8 am to 10 pm. Going forward, the corpses will be sent to the funeral home from the hospital ward, ‘he said