Woman believed to be dead returns home weeks after her funeral

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A 75-year-old Indian woman, who was believed to have died due to COVID-19, shocked her family when she came home weeks after her own funeral.

Mutyala Girijamma was admitted to a local government hospital in Vijayawada, India after testing positive for COVID-19. She later went missing and was believed to have died, as per The Hans India on June 2.

Her husband, Gaddayya, reportedly visited her on May 15, three days after she was first admitted. He could not find Girijamma in her ward and called staff to help him look for his wife.

Gaddayya was told by staff that Girijamma could have died, so he was shown some bodies from the hospital’s morgue. He found a body of an old woman which he thought was his wife and brought the body back home to perform her last rites on the same day.

Since the woman died from COVID-19, neighbors from the village did not attend the funeral and did not see the body brought home by Gaddayya. The couple’s son then died from COVID-19 about a week after the funeral, and a joint memorial service for the mother and child was set up on June 1.

The following day, Girijamma came home alone, disappointed that her family did not visit her while she was recovering from COVID-19. She said she was discharged from the hospital and never left the facility until June 2.

Although the woman is thankful for the doctors who helped her recover from the disease, some villagers are alleging that the hospital had been negligent in discharging patients. Dana Cruz/JB

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