CPM leader Jagannath’s body donated to MKCG

Berhampur: The body of CPM leader Jagannath Mishra (73) was on Monday donated to the Department of Anatomy of MKCG Medical College and Hospital here as per his last wish amidst presence of hundreds of party workers and leaders of different political parties.

This is the 30th body to be donated to the MKCG after the Odisha Assembly passed the Odisha Anatomy (Amendment) Bill, 2012, said J Sagar Prusty, Head of Anatomy department. MKCG Medical College and Hospital Principal Suchitra Dash and Sagar Prusty received the body. Mishra had donated his eyes earlier. The body was donated for dissection and research, Prusty said.

The body of another CPM leader Ram Chandra Nayak, donated to the MKCG 13 years ago, was the first body to be donated. A positive response for body donation in the citizen’s psyche has come as a boon to the medical college, where an acute shortage of cadavers had affected practical training to the students. The body has been preserved in a huge tank filled with chemicals. This body would be used by the postgraduate and undergraduate students in MKCG Medical College and Hospital in due course.

Jagannath Mishra was a bachelor and resident of 3rd Tota Sahi Gosaninuagaon here. He had been suffering from kidney ailments for the last one year.

He was a renowned farmer’s leader. Ali Kishore Patnaik, CPM Central Committee member, wrapped the red flag of the CPM over the body. Veteran leaders Suresh Panigrahi, Janardan Pati, Mayor Sanghamitra Dalei, environmentalist Prafulla Samantara and several others paid floral tributes to Jagannath Mishra, said CPM Ganjam unit secretary Judhistir Behera.

Odisha joined the group in 2012 after Madhya Pradesh, West Bengal, Gujarat, Maharashtra and Karnataka where body donation is legal for study and research by medical students.

The Odisha Anatomy Act 1975, which was the governing law to supply bodies for medical education and research in the State earlier, did not provide for voluntary body donations. The Act provides only for supply of unclaimed bodies to the medical colleges which were mostly handed over to various non-governmental and social welfare organisations for cremation, instead of preserving them for medical and experimental purposes. As a result, there was a scarcity of bodies, which posed problems for the students and teachers in medical college, sources said.