Morgue bribe claims

MORTUARY workers are accused of making a living from the dead by asking funeral parlours for bribes to have bodies released as soon as possible.

This was confirmed by a well-placed source from the Health Department, while DA MPL Imran Keeka said the issue of bribes at Phoenix mortuary was raised on the sidelines of the provincial health portfolio committee’s oversight visit there yesterday. The National Funeral Practitioners Association of South Africa (Nafupa SA) this week said that the ongoing staff and equipment challenges at the government’s medico-legal mortuary in Phoenix had made it impossible for anyone to rest in peace.

Association president Muzi Hlengwa said staff shortages at Phoenix mortuary meant there were severe delays in post-mortems and in some instances mortuary workers wanted anything between R200 and R5 000 to release bodies.

“There is a tendency to deliberately delay the release of bodies to families so the families become frustrated and end up having to give them bribes to get (their bodies) done ahead of others,” said Hlengwa.

He alleged that many of these corrupt mortuary employees had worked at the Gale Street Mortuary before it was closed, and when they were transferred to Phoenix, and to a lesser extent Pinetown and Park Rynie mortuaries, the practice continued.

“There are people who have been waiting for bodies for months and have been sent from pillar to post unnecessarily, just because someone needs to be paid a bribe for him or her to do their job. This is totally unacceptable,” Hlengwa said.

The Independent on Saturday has been reporting on the ongoing crisis at the Phoenix mortuary. It emerged that the facility was overcrowded, with bodies being dumped on the floor and not refrigerated; that it had not been cleaned for weeks because of a chemical shortage and that the stench of rotting corpses had spread to the neighbouring residential area. Mortuary workers said they were expected to work without the required personal protective equipment.

Last week National Education, Health and Allied Workers’ Union (Nehawu) protested at the mortuary and handed over a memorandum to management after two of its members were suspended for refusing to work in those conditions.

However, Hlengwa, whose organisation represented at least 1 000 organisations, said the lack of equipment and chemicals was a result of poor management, and staff were also to blame.

“They are selling the equipment they have been provided with to make a quick buck,” he said.

He claimed that some workers were too “lazy” to put the bodies on the trays which went into the fridges and they processed fewer corpses than required.

“The (current) ratio is two to one, which means each person does two bodies a day. Multiply it by three employees working there, you will get six bodies done a day.

“Every day they are doing far less than they are supposed to do. So, you will have bodies piling up over and over,” Hlengwa said.

The challenges at the Phoenix mortuary have also impacted on Muslim people who are required to bury their loved ones as soon as possible after death. Community representatives said the delays meant the bodies were not released timeously, impacting on their religious practice.

Islamic Burial Council chairman Salim Kazi said the delays – which they again experienced this week – meant the burial could only take place a day later.

“In our community we need to get a quick burial and unfortunately we are facing some challenges. The problem is that we are not getting the body out in time. If the body is there before 5pm, we expect the post-mortem to get done the same day but we are only getting it done the next day,” he said.

Kazi said the reasons given for the delays in Phoenix were usually staff shortages, but Pinetown and Park Rynie did not generally have any challenges.

He said the delays had been going on for several months and while they understood what the mortuary staff experienced during the floods earlier this year, the latest delays didn’t make sense. He was also not aware of requests for bribes from mortuary workers.

“We don’t encourage that from any of our members, we have not encountered such problems. On the Islamic burial side of it we are all voluntary workers. We cannot afford to give bribes for a service provided to us because we are providing a free service,” said Kazi.

ActionSA Durban councillor and Undertakers Forum vice-chairman Ahmed Paruk said the only way the problems could be resolved was by appointing more staff.

He said at least 3 500 bodies had been taken to the Gale Street mortuary every year and since it was closed the bulk of those bodies were transferred to Phoenix mortuary which could not cope. Paruk said after the floods, Phoenix mortuary did not have running water and the Muslim community provided a water tank so it could expedite post-mortems.

The DA’s Keeka said during the Health Portfolio committee’s oversight visit yesterday it emerged that Phoenix mortuary only had 18 trays available for corpses but additional capacity was available at Clairwood Hospital. He said Phoenix had a capacity of 547 bodies but at least 250 bodies currently there were unclaimed or awaiting processes for DNA identification to be completed. One body had been there since 2019.

The backlog at the mortuary increased again yesterday because 81 post-mortems had been scheduled, apart from those expected to come in over the weekend, and staff left early to attend a meeting.

“They will take 10 days to clear the current (today’s) bodies,” said Keeka.

He said Health MEC Nomagugu Simelane should be held accountable for the crisis.

KZN Department of Health spokesman Ntokozo Maphisa said the department’s medico-legal mortuaries were functional and contingency plans were in place should emergencies or spatial challenges arise. He said: ”Engagements with the SAPS regarding the expeditement of forensic investigations into mortal remains have taken place and are ongoing.”