How Hospitals Treat Deceased?

Need of Ethics and Soft Skills! 

How are hospitals and nursing homes expected to treat patients who have died in course of undergoing treatment? By any standards, after the attending physician issues a death certificate, it is the basic decency of nurses to clean the patient and make them presentable before handing over the deceased to their kins.

Globally, the general practice is to lay the patient on their back with one pillow in place; straighten the patient’s limbs and place their arms by their sides; gently close the patient’s eyes if open by applying light pressure for thirty seconds. And finally, tidy the hair as soon as possible and arrange it into the preferred style.

Publisher-Writer Sujit Acharya

Soon after death occurs, one should be able to close the eyelids quite easily. However, after a while, once rigor mortis sets in, it can become difficult. 

All these are done to give the deceased dignity and show they are sleeping peacefully. It is an expression of respect and affection, part of the process of adjusting to loss and expressing grief.  

My uncle spent in a hospital at an Indian metro city nearly ten days dying. He was sleeping because his organs were shutting down, a natural process due to old age. He passed away on 30th November 2018. He was 91.

All hell broke loose in the lineage as soon someone shared half-a-dozen photographs of the deceased through WhatsApp. I was yet to receive though. My sibling who resides in a different city texted me that the images were extremely distasteful and was reluctant to show or share it with anybody!

After a week or so, those same set of images too landed up in my WhatsApp on a late

The Awful image of deceased

night. Honestly, I could not stare at the photographs for more than a second as it was just terrible and hurting me. Initially, I was fuming against the sender but then, a deeper thought came into my mind.

Observing the photographs, I felt that there had been serious deficiency on part of the hospital in handing over the deceased to kins without even caring to make it bare-minimum presentable! The eyes and mouth were wide open! And this only compounded lot of doubts and integrity of the hospital in question. 

If this was the state of affairs at a reputed hospital in a metro city, then one could imagine plight of millions of patients across the various Indian states who has to visit such type of health care centres on a regular basis.

The transformed image with closed eyelids and mouth

All these had choked me with emotions. I was convinced that our fun-loving uncle alias, Publisher & Writer Sujit Acharya, who was extremely health conscious, who took pride in his dressing and looks, would have never liked to be seen in such disgraceful images.

After months I was able to muster courage to view those photographs. Staring at them I was wondering deeply if anything positive could be done. With several hours of trial and error in my Mac, I was finally able to transform an appropriate image that should be acceptable in contrast to the ones shared! 

Yes, he is now peacefully sleeping - I am sure our uncle, affectionately addressed by many as Kuka, appears that his soul is satisfied!

Sujit Acharya

To conclude, hospitals, nursing homes and other health care organisations must

Publisher & Writer Sujit Acharya

ensure adequate dignity to the deceased. They should be trained in soft skills to deal with the deceased's grieve-stricken kins and loved ones. While there is a crying need of an effective competent government agencies to monitor hospitals and nursing homes from time to time, health organisations should also initiate punitive actions on its own against the erring personnel. 

Further, citizens who are armed with the power of internet can post their experiences in various social media. They should avoid circulating fake messages and instead genuinely report any such deficiencies as well as show whole heartedly praise for any good deeds shown. These steps may put the hospitals and nursing homes on their toes to thwart recurrence of such unpleasant episodes.