Airline, hospital rules clash, kin unable to take Kerala man’s body home

Noida: The family of a 44-year-old engineer, who died of a heart attack on Wednesday, has not been able to take his body back home to Kerala because airlines and hospitals are citing two different protocols on Covid tests.
The family says they had been told both by airlines and Kochi airport authorities that the body has to be tested for Covid. Hospitals in Noida, meanwhile, say they don't conduct any such test unless asked to by the government.
Relatives of Sanju Muthai Ramchandran, who was from Pathanamthitta in Kerala, say they plan to take his body home so that his parents could see their son one last time.
Sanju’s parents are in their late eighties and have been advised against travelling long distances, which is why it would be difficult for them to come to Noida for the last rites.
Sanju had been working with a private firm in Delhi’s Sarita Vihar and lived in Noida (Sector 49) with his wife and two children. His brother-in-law lived in a housing society nearby.
While the Noida health department insisted that a Covid certificate was not required for those who had died of non-Covid reasons, officials of at least two private airlines told TOI guidelines for cargo had been revised and the document is now mandatory for bodies being transported by flights.
But Sanju’s friends and relatives say when they went to the Noida chief medical officer’s office, they were shown copies of two orders by the Union ministry of health and family welfare and the UP government.
The Union ministry’s order says that bodies of “covid suspect patients” should be handed over to their families immediately and without waiting for certificates from laboratories.
The UP government’s letter also specifies that bodies of “suspected Covid-19 patients” be given to their relatives without any certificate whatsoever.
Both orders, however, do not mention anything about transportation of bodies.
Officials said since Sanju had died of a heart attack, no certificate was required for transporting his body anywhere in the country.
Noida district magistrate Suhas LY referred to the central and state government orders. “Even the government guidelines have a technical point — if Covid tests are performed on bodies, there is no guarantee that the results would be accurate,” he added.
TG Vijayakumar, president of the Greater Noida Kerala Association, said Sanju’s family members and relatives were planning to transport his body by air to Kochi and then take it to Pathanamthitta by road.
“Sanju’s parents are quite old and they have been desperately wanting a last glimpse of their son. We contacted a major airline for transporting the body, but they reiterated that a Covid certificate was necessary. The authorities at Kochi airport also said they would allow the body only if there was a report that said he did not have Covid,” Vijaykumar added.
He referred to a similar case, where the body of another Kerala resident, who, too, had died of non-Covid causes, could not be taken home for lack of a Covid certificate.
The engineer’s relatives have not been able to get a Covid test done so far, and are exploring the option of cremating the body in Noida itself.
“His parents will not be able to travel in a flight. They wanted to see him once before his cremation but that doesn’t seem possible now. We would welcome any help from anybody, if possible,” Vijayakumar said.
Covid care facilities in Noida said they would conduct tests on bodies only when asked by the government. “As of now, we are not conducting Covid tests on bodies,” said Ajit Kumar, spokesperson for Sharda Hospital, a designated L3 facility for Covid patients.