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Now, the dead can wait

D Jose in Thiruvananthapuram

A Keralite, who was moved by the agony of his friends employed in the Gulf not being able to attend the funerals of their near and dear ones, has developed a mobile unit that can preserve dead bodies up to several days.

N Vijaykumar, who works in Bangalore, believes the 'portable corpse preserver', as he calls it, would be useful in rural Kerala where modern mortuary facilities are not available. The state has a large number of aged living alone in villages. There are several families in the state which have all their children working outside Kerala.

The unit, weighing 150 kg, can be carried in an ambulance or any other vehicle. It has two compressors (one spare) operated by a 2000-watt generator. At the optimum temperature, the unit switches off automatically. Even in case of a power failure, the unit's interior temperature remains steady for four hours.

The wheels that facilitate the moving of the unit on even floors can be locked once it is placed inside a vehicle. Since the upper part of the unit is made up of glass, the body is easily visible to the mourners.

Costing Rs 80,000 a piece, the PCPs are currently being supplied to hospitals and non-government organisations and some of them are already operational.

The unit was first used on December 30 for a man, whose two sons - G Mohanan and G Unni - worked in the Gulf. The body was kept in the preserver till the sons reached home three days after the death.

Vijayakumar worked for five years before he was ready with the first PCP.

The Kerala government offers financial assistance to non-resident Indians to attend the last rites of their close relatives. It also helps bring back bodies of NRI who die abroad.

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