NELSPRUIT – An irate service provider nearly dumped bodies of paupers awaiting burial at the Rob Ferreira Hospital’s mortuary following a payment grievance.
However the situation was normalised by the arrival of the spokesman for health, Mr Ronnie Masilela, who swiftly investigated the matter and got to the bottom of it. Ms Thembeka Mnisi-Nsingwane, owner of 21st Century Funeral Undertakers arrived at the hospital with the bodies, threatening to leave them in front of the locked mortuary.
She claimed the hospital had not honoured their contract with her, hence she could not bury the unclaimed corpses she had received last year November.
“I submitted an invoice in January but to date, no payment has been made by the institution. Instead of being paid, I’ve been given a runaround. I am running a business and I cannot work like this. I am here to return the bodies,” she told journalists, adding that she had four more that were in various stages of decomposition at her business premises.
She said she was also owed payments for previous services rendered. In an attempt to resolve what he described as a misunderstanding, Masilela then had a brief private meeting with the furious undertaker and the hospital.
After the discussion, Mnisi-Nsingwane told reporters they had managed to resolve their grievances and she would no longer dump the bodies. Masilela said, “What happened here was just an issue of the misallocation of funds and the hospital will have the payment processed by tomorrow. There is no crisis and we will continue to work with this service provider. We will try by all means to avoid cases like these in the future.”
