Family of four at frontline for final rites of virus victims

HAILING CORONA WARRIORS

Yerawada-based PMC contract employee and his family, along with his team, have cremated over 200 COVID-19 victims, but rue that the civic body has not offered them mediclaim insurance cover yet

Fears and misconceptions surrounding the coronavirus disease have led to several unsavoury incidents in the last few months since the pandemic began, putting the darker side of human nature up on display. These include ostracisation of COVID-19 positive patients, and even numerous families refusing to participate in the final rites of a person who has succumbed to the viral infection.

But shifting the spotlight onto a more positive endeavour, one family in the city has stood united, performing cremations for scores of COVID-19 victims over the last two months, despite the risk involved. And while this family of four from Yerawada is actively helping the authorities by carrying out last rites for people who have fallen to the coronavirus, they are ruing that Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC) has not even offered them any mediclaim insurance, unlike most other frontline workers.


Weeks ago, when the COVID-19 toll had only just begun manifesting, PMC was allowing funerals of these victims at any crematorium in the city.

However, as the number of deaths began rising, civic officials decided that only two crematoriums would operate for COVID-19 deceased — one at Yerawada and the other near Naidu Infectious Diseases Hospital. It was at this point that contract employee Arun Jangam came into the picture, tying up with PMC to perform last rites for these patients at the designated facilities, as he already had experience of doing so at other crematoriums.

But the 49-year-old was not left alone to fulfil the task. His wife Meera (41), son Abhishek (23) and daughter Sakshi (18) joined the fray right away, and voluntarily began tackling the job at hand as a unit.

“I have seen that in some cases, family members of the deceased refused to come to the crematorium, fearing infection. But my family is taking up this work to help my team at a difficult time like this,” Arun proudly shared, adding that every bit of help matters at this point.

While he is busy making rounds between the two dedicated crematoriums for COVID-19 funerals, Meera keeps a record of the deceased to submit to PMC. Abhishek and Sakshi — who are in college studying interior design and just took the Class XII exam, respectively — keep supplying personal protective equipment (PPE) kits to their father at the crematoriums and help in spraying disinfectant around.

“They have seen me running from one facility to the other the whole day and so, they decided to step in. Both my children are at home as their colleges have not started yet. In order to engage themselves meaningfully, they thought they would help their father rather than just sit around,” relayed Arun.

But while they are smoothly doing the needful now, it didn’t start out so easily when the outbreak began. Said Meera, “In April, we were not as aware about the coronavirus and its spread as we are today — we were quite scared of transmission. However, when we saw how my husband was taking all precautions and actually doing a good social service, we decided to help him as his loved ones.”

So far, Jangam and his team of 10-12, besides his family, have performed funerals for over 200 COVID-19 positive deceased — but without any mediclaim insurance cover of their own. Now, they feel that since PMC has extended this cover to nearly all its employees working as ‘corona warriors’, it should do the same for them as well. Sharing that he has informally requested PMC health chief Ramchandra Hankare to facilitate medical insurance, Arun said, “When people come to know that we are performing funerals of COVID-19 deceased, they hail our duty and call us ‘corona warriors’ — but unlike the other frontline workers, we are fighting without the shield of health insurance.”

He further stated that like him, every member of his team is putting their lives at risk. “They are also passing on the dangers to their own families by doing such work. We have requested PMC to check if they can give us some insurance cover. If this happens, we can work with less tension, as there will be some financial aid for the family if something happens to us during this time,” summed up Arun.

When contacted about this issue, PMC commissioner Shekhar Gaikwad verbally assured, “We are ready to provide insurance cover to those who have entered into a contract with PMC and are involved in COVID-19 work. If some unfortunate incident happens to them while conducting last rites of coronavirus deceased, we will ensure that their families get compensation of Rs 50 lakh.”