U-turn on puff rooms in Osmania General Hospital announced on May 7
Gandhi Hospital recently got a new puff room and OGH was to get the same facility in the next few days.
Hyderabad: Health minister C. Laxma Reddy declared on May 7 that the Osmania General Hospital, which did not have functional puff rooms to store unclaimed bodies for 72 hours, would be provided with the facility on a war footing.
Gandhi Hospital recently got a new puff room and OGH was to get the same facility in the next few days. The authorities are yet to do this and hence OGH is still waiting for a functional puff room.
OGH at present has two non-functional puff rooms — one old and the other a new one which is yet to start due to air-conditioning problems.
Puff room is equipped with an AC enclosure which has multiple racks to store 30 to 40 bodies for a few days so that they don't get decomposed. Ideally, unclaimed bodies have to be kept in the puff room for a 72-hour duration after post-mortem. If no one claims them, they should be taken away for cremation.
Due to lack of this facility, OGH is keeping unclaimed bodies out in the open in old autopsy theatre. It has turned into a transit room. GHMC staff shifts the bodies from this transit room for cremation in grave yards.
Having no puff room means the higher the chances for bodies to get decomposed, posing health risks not only to the staff and doctors working in the mortuary but also to the visitors frequenting the mortuary every day.