Odisha: Nurse Quits Job To Cremate Bodies Of COVID-19 Patients Alongside Her Husband

Odisha nurse cremating COVID patients with husband: Odisha-based nurse, Madhusmita Prusty, is in news for quitting her well-paid nursing job at Fortis Hospital in Kolkata to help her husband cremate bodies in her native state in 2019. The couple has been cremating infected and unclaimed COVID-19 dead bodies in Bhubaneswar ever since.

"I was working as a nurse in the paediatric department of Fortis Hospital in Kolkata," Prusty revealed, adding that she decided to return to her native state Odisha and help her husband as he could not perform cremation work after leg injuries. The 37-year-old woman, who has been doing this job for over two and half years now, told ANI that she nursed patients for nine years and now assist her husband in performing the last rites of abandoned bodies which she said they recover from railway tracks, suicide cases and hospitals.

She said she has performed the last rites of over 300 COVID-19 dead bodies for free since the beginning of the pandemic in March last year and 500 bodies in the last two and half years in Bhubaneswar. But several times, people even resisted the presence of women at funerals. "Being a woman I was criticised for cremating bodies but I continued my work under Pradeep Seva Trust, which is run in my husband's name," she added.

I performed last rites of 500 bodies in 2.5 years & over 300 Covid bodies last year in Bhubaneswar. Being a woman, I was criticised for doing so but I continued working under a trust run by my husband: Madhusmita Prusty, who quit nursing job to cremate unclaimed bodies in Odisha pic.twitter.com/oips5OYsAD

— ANI (@ANI) May 23, 2021

A resident of Bhimtangi in the city, Prusty further said that their Trust has signed an agreement with Bhubaneswar Municipal Corporation to pick up COVID-19 infected dead bodies from the hospital and to perform the last rituals at crematorium in the city. "After my marriage, I completed BSc Nursing and joined Fortis in 2010. Whenever I was at home, I used to accompany my husband who has been cremating bodies for the last over two decades," she told The New Indian Express.

Her husband Pardeep Kumar Prusty said he has been doing this job for the last eleven years in Bhubaneswar. Pardeep added that his wife started working with him as he was having it difficult to cremate bodies all alone. He also sells vegetables along with this work.

Featured Image Credit: ANI