Bodies go AWOL
DA's Gauteng shadow MEC for health reveals that three bodies were wrongly released from state mortuaries in 2013 and 2014.
In a statement released by DA Gauteng Shadow Health MEC Jack Bloom on 17 June, three bodies were erroneously released from Gauteng state mortuaries in 2013 and 2014.
According to Marthie Botha, secretary of the National Funeral Directors Association of Southern Africa (NFDA), the NFDA is just one of a number of member associations in the funeral industry, and no state mortuary is a member of any of these. With regards to the three instances mentioned by the shadow MEC, the NFDA does not have any knowledge of those.
“Releasing bodies to the wrong funeral home would be in severe breach of the NFDA’s Code of Conduct,” said Botha. “When a family requests a funeral director to collect a body from a state mortuary and arrange a funeral, the state mortuary is contacted and arrangements made for collection. The undertaker has a name and an ID number and goes to the state mortuary in good faith that all documentation and records will be in order, that the doctor will have completed the post mortem and signed the necessary documents, and that the mortuary will issue the correct body.”
Botha continued, “Undertakers do not know what the deceased look like. They have no way of identifying the body other than the ID, and must trust that the state mortuary has done the correct identification before releasing the body. This implies that undertakers, who are members of the NFDA and collect bodies that later turn out to be wrongly released, have not done any wrongdoing, neither can they take responsibility for mistakes made by the state mortuary.”
Funeral directing is an essential public service, and the NFDA is a non-profit organisation. If you have any queries or complaints relating to any aspect of the funeral industry, you will find a comprehensive list of resources on their website.
Details: Jack Bloom, JBloom@gpl.gov.za or 082 333 4222; NFDA, www.nfda.org.za
