Pinetown Mortuary: DA calls for urgent oversight as 50 bodies lie piled up since January

21 June 2017

The Democratic Alliance will call for an urgent oversight visit by KwaZulu-Natal’s health portfolio committee to the Pinetown mortuary following the discovery of 50 bodies that have been lying piled up - without post-mortems or burials - since January. The bodies, which have also not been claimed by relatives, are now in an advanced state of decomposition.

The findings come amid speculation that the backlog has been caused by the mortuary’s resident pathologist being frequently absent. This has been confirmed to the DA via two sources, one based at the mortuary and another from a facility that will be possibly involved in completing the post mortems over the next few days. According to both sources, KZN’s Health Department supposedly intends bringing in Forensic Pathologists from other facilities to assist with the backlog.

The fact is that the Health Department should have intervened long ago.

The sectoral issues are not unique to KwaZulu-Natal. Recently there have been similar grievances in Gauteng, with much grief caused to hundreds of families. It is also not the first time that there have been problems at Pinetown Mortuary. In March this year, mortuary workers at this, and several other facilities, embarked on a strike over their working conditions causing a severe backlog in autopsies and burials.

The same happened in May with the result that the MEC rushed in to perform post-mortems himself. At the time the DA warned him that unless he dealt with workers’ grievances they would continue to come back to haunt him. Our advice fell on deaf ears. Since he may soon be out of a job, the DA suggests that he pursue this area of interest until he retires from healthcare completely.

The province’s health portfolio committee is due to visit the Fort Napier Mortuary on Fridayfor a routine oversight visit. Given the current situation at the Pinetown mortuary, the DA will instead request that the committee visit this facility. We will also submit a written parliamentary question to MEC Dhlomo about the circumstances at this mortuary and will call for answers around the delays in burials which we believe could also be as a result of the department’s current financial status.

It is clear that MEC Dhlomo has again failed people of KwaZulu-Natal. His reign over the province’s health department must end without any further delay.

Issued by Imran Keeka, DA KZN Spokesperson on Health, 21 June 2017