Unattended and neglected: Nepal’s struggle with managing dead bodies

Upon entering the morgue, you immediately notice a distinct smell that makes you take a step back. Broken stretchers are piled on top of each other and the floor is covered with blood. As you make your way through the passage, you come across dead bodies placed on stretchers. The body is in an abandoned condition, with only the skeleton remaining.

This scene is from the Department of Forensic Medicine (DoFM) under the Tribhuvan University Teaching Hospital (TUTH) Institute of Medicine located in Maharajgunj. Adjacent to the passage is the morgue’s cold room, where there is a large fridge at a sub-zero temperature, where the corpses brought for post-mortem are kept to prevent further decomposition.