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Can there be a bigger shame than this?

Hospital buries its ‘ rat- nibbled’ shame on campus

By Sudhanshu Mishra in Jaipur

FOR A man who had donated his body for the welfare of the medical professionals, it was an end most unceremonious. Professor Rameshwar Sharma, late principal of the Jaipur Sawai Man Singh ( SMS) medical college, had willed that after his death his body should be donated to the college. But the ignorant college authorities failed to appreciate his generous gesture. After rats started nibbling the body — kept in the anatomy department of the medical college — it was declared not fit for use and buried in the college campus on Thursday. MAIL TODAY had reported in July 2011 how parts of Sharma’s body were damaged by rats, including the left toe which had been completely eaten away by the rodents. Details emerging now reveal how the anatomy department callously failed to take care of the body despite tall claims. The body degenerated to the point that it was rendered unfit for the students. Principal of the SMS medical college, Dr Subhash Nepalia, said the body had degenerated, and the decision to bury it was taken after a written consent from Sharma’s family. He said the skeleton would be exhumed for benefit of the students. Anatomy department head, Dr G. C. Agrawal — in whose presence the body was buried — refused to take any questions, saying he was under instruction from the principal not to discuss the matter. “ You should talk to the principal only,” he said. Dr Pradeep Sharma, son of the late principal, said he was aware of the matter. “ He ( Rameshwar Sharma) often used to say that whatever he was, it was because of the SMS medical college and, therefore, wanted to do something for the institution. When he was the principal, he had expressed the desire to donate his body to the college to tackle the shortage of cadavers,” Pradeep, a psychiatrist at Jaipur’s Psychiatric Centre, said. Dr Sharma died on January 4, 2007, and his family donated the body immediately to the college. The anatomy department embalmed the body and left it on a stretcher in the college morgue. But when the sorry state of affairs was revealed in July, Agarwal had said he did not know whose body it was. He claimed the body was to be handed over to the privately run Mahatma Gandhi Medical College in Jaipur. A senior anatomy professor, Dr Sangeeta Chouhan, identified the body. SMS medical college requires over 20 human cadavers every year. Excess corpses were offered to other medical colleges. A winner of the B. C. Roy award for his contribution to medical education, Dr Sharma was also the vicechancellor of Rajasthan University. He was the founder of the Indian Institute of Health Management Research.

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