Never had scout Shiwani Dewan of Bhadrapur-6 in Jhapa district thought she would have to ever manage dead bodies someday. But one day when she was tasked to dispose of the COVID-19 victims’ bodies, the daredevil assistant Scout lady did not lag behind to take her duty call.
As the second wave of COVID-19 hit claiming one after other lives nationwide, mostly the middle-aged ones, managing the dead bodies by a special team of the Nepali Army in Jhapa became a herculean task due to human resources crunch.
Jhapa was one of the hardest-hit districts even in the second wave and the number of COVID-19 fatalities continued to rise alarmingly while there were only limited numbers of trained Army personnel in the district to manage the dead bodies.
That’s when the Provincial Scout stepped in and proposed to extend a helping hand in undertaking one of the difficult and dangerous tasks in the pandemic -safe management of the bodies of COVID-19 victims.
Nepali Army’s special team imparted four-day training to Dewan and 16 others from how to protect themselves with PPEs, other safety wears and gears to how to wrap the dead bodies in plastic-made body-bags and eventually how to cremate or bury those bodies safely.
Since the training imparted towards the mid of May had boosted the confidence of Shiwani to the next level, she has been on her toe and is ever ready to shoulder relevant responsibilities.
Her daily routine has also changed since then. No sooner she gets information about the deceased from the local people’s representatives, along with a team of three other trained scout fellows immediately reach out to the hospitals, homes, or isolation or quarantine facilities and carries the dead bodies from those places to ambulances and hearses.
Once the dead bodies are brought to the designated cremation and burial places, Dewan and her team spray sanitizers (disinfection spray) on the dead bodies and surroundings and symbolically perform the final ritual themselves.
Recollecting the first experience of touching the dead body of the COVID-19 victims, the Braveheart Scout admitted, “Initially, I was little terrified while touching the dead body of COVID-19 victims. My heart skipped a beat when I had to disinfect the dead body and the surrounding with disinfection spray.”
She went on to recall, “Then the sense of a Scout sank into me. I said to myself that I am a Scout. I should discharge my duties what may come. Thereafter I have been managing the dead bodies like any other regular duty.”
Shiwani along with other 16 trained Scouts stays in a quarantine facility at Chandragadhi-based Scout Office.
The Province Scout has been adequately providing PPEs and other safety gears and wears as well as preventive health supplies to the trained scouts for their effective service delivery as the country is grappling with the second wave of a deadly infection.
Shiwani expressed that she was proud of herself and her scout organization for being able to contribute to her country at the time when the pandemic was raving the world.
Provincial Scout has been providing a sufficient quantity of health supplies including PPE, facemasks, and sanitiser for the personal safety of the scout team deputed for the management of bodies.
Shiwani shared that she has been feeling proud for serving the country at a time when the country is reeling under the coronavirus pandemic. She has been getting support and encouragement from her family in this task.
Her mother, Rukmini Dewan, is a teacher at Lalitpur Nursing Campus. Shiwani shared, “I easily agreed on Scout’s proposal for the same. My father and mother encouraged me later saying it is the good work.”
She said, “Now I am not afraid of carrying dead bodies and placing them on pyres for cremation. The only male has been found involved in managing dead bodies in Nepali society. Females are deputed only to carry water and snacks to the people participating in the funeral process. But Shiwani and her friends have proved that now women can do any type of risky work.
Out of the 17-member Scouts team, Shiwani and Puja Kandel are only female volunteers. Battalion Chief of Naya Shreenath Battalion at Charaali, Amber Jung Thapa, lauded that the Scout team with the collaboration of the Nepali Army has been successfully managing the bodies.
Saying the Scouts has been serving the nation and the people in any critical situation in the country, Thapa added that the Scout has been carrying out sensitive work of managing bodies with the collaboration of the NA even amid this coronavirus pandemic.
Getting the Nepal Scouts as the friend of people in sorrow was a matter of happiness, he opined.
Thapa further said that out of 303 people who died of coronavirus infection in the district so far, the Battalion has managed 215 bodies while the Scouts managed the 13 bodies.
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