KOLKATA: RG Kar Medical College has conducted pathological autopsies on two more Covid victims, including a doctor and a 92-year-old woman. This is for the first time in the country that any medical college has done a clinical postmortem on a 92-year-old woman. RG Kar Medical College has so far performed a pathological autopsy on three Covid victim bodies. The first autopsy was conducted on Brojo Roy, Secretary of Gana Darpan on May 14.
A 3-member team of doctors was constituted with Dr Somenath Das, Head of Forensic Medicine of the hospital, to carry out the clinical autopsy on Roy's body. The same team has performed the two clinical postmortems.
The doctors are trying to find out the chain of circumstances that happen before the death of the Covid patients and how the infection is transmitted from one organ to the others. The research aims to detect how the virus causes death after damaging all organs.
The committee will submit a detailed report in all three cases to the Swasthya Bhawan. RG Kar Medical College and Hospital authorities have applied to the ICMR last year seeking permission to conduct pathological autopsy but the latter had raised certain issues and permission was not given. But this year, it has received a clearance following the intervention of the National Human Right Commission.
Dr Biswajit Chakravartti, who himself was a physician from Kharagpur, died of Covid at a private hospital in the city on May 16. His family members had given consent to carry out a pathological autopsy on his body for research purposes. Dr Chakravartti had wished to donate his body to the Calcutta Medical College and Hospital for medical research as he was once a student there.
There are some restrictions on handling the body of Covid patients. The state Health department finally gave clearance to the hospital. The medical team at RG Kar conducted the autopsy abiding by the Covid protocols.
In a similar incident, 92-year-old Jyotsna Sarkar, a relative of a former CPI(M) MP died of Covid. Sarkar had pledged to donate her body for research.
The Health department proposed to perform a pathological autopsy, which the family members readily agreed. The Health department, therefore, gave clearance to conduct the pathological autopsy on the body of the nonagenarian. Both, the autopsies were successfully done on May 17. "We have retrieved the organs. Pictures were taken of all organs. Macroscopic report has been prepared.
"The pathological report is expected to be ready in the next few days," Dr Das said.