{"id":110170,"date":"2020-12-29T17:08:33","date_gmt":"2020-12-30T00:08:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/?p=110170"},"modified":"2020-12-29T17:08:33","modified_gmt":"2020-12-30T00:08:33","slug":"cremation-or-burial-expert-committee-report-handed-over","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2020\/12\/29\/cremation-or-burial-expert-committee-report-handed-over\/","title":{"rendered":"Cremation or Burial – Expert committee report handed over"},"content":{"rendered":"

Courtesy Hiru News<\/em><\/span><\/h2>\n\n\n

Prof. Jennifer Perera, the Chairman of the expert committee appointed to determine the course of action to be taken regarding the corpses of people who have died due to coronavirus infection, has submitted its report to the Ministry of Health.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Steps were taken to appoint a new nine-member expert committee to give an opinion on whether the bodies of those who died after being infected with the virus should be cremated or buried.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The report of the expert committee chaired by Prof. Jennifer Perera was handed over to the Ministry of Health yesterday afternoon.<br \/><br \/>Hiru news team was informed that the decision of the report of the expert committee has been an unanimous decision regarding the course of action to be taken regarding the dead bodies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Although we have tried on several occasions to contact the Secretary to the Ministry of Health to inquire into the submission of this committee report to the Ministry of Health, it has been unsuccessful and the statement from his office is that the Secretary is attending meetings.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, an expert committee had previously been appointed to decide on the course of action to be taken regarding the corpses of those who died due to corona and the committee recommended cremation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A protest was held in Matale today with the participation of monks and residents of the area to protest against the burial of corona infected bodies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Meanwhile, a resident of the Kaluwella area in Galle who was admitted to the Kalubowila Hospital died on November 30. A subsequent PCR test was carried out. The test revealed that he was infected with the corona virus.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Athula Kotugoda, the coroner of the Kalubowila Teaching Hospital, told the Hiru news team that the relatives of the deceased had refused to identify the body, saying that they would not accept the body if it was not provided for burial.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Police have reported the matter to the Mount Lavinia Magistrate’s Court and the court has ordered that the body to be cremated after being identified by relatives.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The wife and brother of the deceased have even refused to identify the body since it has to be cremated.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As a result, the body has been placed at the morgue since November 30.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, according to a gazette notification issued by the government on 11\/04\/2020, these must be cremated within 24 hours. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Courtesy Hiru News Prof. Jennifer Perera, the Chairman of the expert committee appointed to determine the course of action to be taken regarding the corpses of people who have died due to coronavirus infection, has submitted its report to the Ministry of Health. Steps were taken to appoint a new nine-member expert committee to give […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":true,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[122],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-110170","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-health"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/110170","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=110170"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/110170\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=110170"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=110170"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=110170"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}