More than 1 500 corpses stink out morgues
The system of identifying bodies in South Africa has been slammed following an increase in the number of unclaimed corpses in state morgues across the province.
Suffering an unbearable stench, likened to rotten meat, mortuary workers claim that mortuaries are overfilled with unclaimed, unidentified bodies, making it more and more difficult to perform their daily duties.
It is reported around 1 509 bodies are currently unclaimed, which is in violation of health regulations and is posing a serious health hazard to mortuary staff.
Moreover, there is a shortage of space to store the over 500 bodies, with some being left to decompose in the refrigerator, due to there being no space in the freezers.
Some unclaimed corpses have been lying there from as far back as 2017.
A source at Fort Napier mortuary in Pietermaritzburg said that despite pauper burials being conducted every Wednesday, the number of unclaimed corpses never seems to go down.
Towards end of July, about 80 corpses were sent for pauper burial. The condition we work under poses health hazards. Even when [the mortuary] is cleaned, the stench is still unbearable. It smells like rotten meat. There are bodies that end up being placed on the floor as we have a shortage of trays. We also have a shortage of staff, which leads to employees working [overtime]. We also need to attend to [call-outs], which we can’t put on hold.
The source aaded that air-conditioners do not work and that the building also has a leaking roof.
Another source from Phoenix mortuary told The Witness that a body should not stay in a mortuary for more than 30 days.
They added that if, after seven days, a person is still unknown, the police must start searching for their relatives.
The source said police officers come from Pretoria to collect samples for DNA tests, but there is no data to try match it to “unless someone comes to say that he or she has lost someone and suspects that this corpse is theirs”.
“We have a corpse that has been with us for almost a year, but recently, [while preparing for a pauper’s burial], we found documents with his information in his pockets. Only then did the process of tracing his family start, which is something that should have been done a long time ago.
“The more a body decomposes, the more [DNA] evidence is lost. We have corpses from 2017, which should at least be kept in a freezer because they are old. The fridge doesn’t prevent the corpse from decomposing. If the corpse has been kept in a fridge for more than a month it starts to decompose.
The mortuary stinks. When you open that fridge with more than 300 corpses, the gas hits you directly in the eyes and tears start to fall. That alone shows that the situation you are faced with is not healthy and it will make you sick.
The source said there are employees who became sick, but it is difficult to prove that the cause of their illness is the stench at the mortuary.
“Some bodies are placed on the floor since there’s no space on the shelves. Our capacity is able to accommodate about 500 bodies, but now there are more.
“We try to avoid piling them on top of each other [but sometimes] there’s no other way.”
National Education, Health and Allied Workers’ Union regional secretary, Mazwi Ngubane, said this poses a serious health hazard to the workers, especially because the cause of death for these bodies is unnatural.
“One cannot tell if a body has been contagious in life, if so, then it would be contagious after death. There are inquest cases that require tests before determining the cause of death, but by the time they get results, the workers would have suffered due to spending prolonged periods in a contaminated space,” said Ngubane.
He added that at the Fort Napier mortuary, you can smell the odour of the decomposed corpses from the main entrance.
As per the standard operation procedure, should the body not being identified within three days, the case must be reported to the investigating officer who will initiate the process of looking for relatives. That process includes taking fingerprints, DNA samples, skeletal remains, and pictures of the body.
Ngubane said if the investigating officer doesn’t find the relatives, then the permission for pauper burial should be issued.
“The local municipality should provide the space to bury that unclaimed body and the grave number is recorded. In the case where the relatives show up after the burial, the DNA samples are used to confirm if the body is that of their loved one. They can then apply for exhumation if need be.
“The overflow in morgues is putting unnecessary burden on the overworked employees.”
Ngubane said Fort Napier mortuary has been leading with the highest number of pauper burials, followed by Phoenix mortuary. However, there has been a significant improvement in Fort Napier lately.
“Nehawu met with the MEC for Health in August to discuss this matter. We would like to confirm that after a mere seven days, at least 100 unclaimed bodies were buried. We would like to applaud the improvement that has been done by the department. Nehawu has been calling for the burial of these bodies for many years.”
“We hope the department will conclude the burial of the remaining unknown bodies. We also urge the Department of Health to do the same in other mortuaries across the province,” said Ngubane.
Despite multiple attempts to get comment from the Department of Health, a response was not forthcoming by the time of publication.
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