People will have to pay even more after death

Earlier this week, the Herald reported on the issue of poor families in Ikageng that will no longer receive groceries for the burial of their loved ones.
Now, even the hospitals will be implementing price hikes for death certificates and the storage of dead bodies.
For years, these services were delivered to the community free of charge. Many people have no choice but to make use of state hospitals due to the high cost of private hospitals and also because these hospitals are supposed to have their best interest at heart.
As of 2015, however, Potchefstroom Hospital started charging fees for the issuing of the BI 1663 (death certificate). There is now also a fee for each working day that the body of a deceased loved one is kept in the hospital mortuary.
A well-known undertaker, who deals with a number of burials in Potchefstroom, describes these fees as a total exploitation of the poor and elderly in the greater Tlokwe. Wishing to remain anonymous, he says people who use the services of Potchefstroom Hospital normally just cannot afford any additional fees.
There is more to these fees than just collecting more money from the poor, however. According to Potchefstroom Hospital spokesperson, Mr Modiri Mompati, the fees increase for non-patients (which include mortuary fees and death certificate fees) remain the prerogative of the Department of Health. No increases are therefore made by the hospital, itself.
The increases in fees on the death certificate is in good faith, however, in an effort to reduce fraudulent activity. According to Beatrice Motlogelwe, administrative director of the hospital, these fees should help to discourage people from using death certificates to claim illegally after the death of a loved one.
As for the mortuary service, “The family member or any other person requesting the corpse and its related service are only charged a mortuary fee if the corpse has been in the facility for more than 24 hours,” says Mompati.
Motlogelwe explains that the mortuary only has holding space for 20 corpses at a time, so the hospital cannot afford to keep any corpse for longer than 24 hours.
“When we leave on a Friday, the mortuary would be empty but, as soon as we come to work on a Monday morning, it is full to capacity,” she says.
A daily storage fee that excludes weekends and public holidays would encourage undertakers to collect the body immediately and help free up storage space.
Motlogelwe says all the undertakers in Potchefstroom have been informed of the price hikes that took effect on 1 May.
“They should, therefore, include these fees in their burial packages,” she says.
Motlogelwe assures that these fees will not apply to poor families that cannot afford an undertaker. After the hospital has conducted a means test to prove that the family is unable to afford any fees, it will do a burial for the family free of charge.
The new fees as from 1 May 2016 are R369 for a BI 1663 (death certificate) by a general practitioner, R497 for a BI 1663 by a specialist, R248 for copies of records or X-rays, a R173 mortuary fee, applicable after 24 hours and R173 for a cremation certificate.
“Failure to adhere to this directive will be deemed a violation of Public Finance Management Act 92 of 1999 Treasury Regulations read with the National Health Act 61 of 2003,” says Mompati.