Overgrown grass, unkempt storage rooms, blood splatters on walls and corpses on the floor were some of the horrendous scenes that greeted the Daily Dispatch at the state mortuary in Woodbrook.
Five years after this newspaper first exposed the poor state of the mortuary, nothing has changed.
It also turns out that the facility is run by an admin clerk who has been working as an acting supervisor since 2014. He is a level five official in a level 10 position.
Last week a member of the public walked into the place and took a video using his cellphone to expose the neglect at the facility.
The source, who did not want to be named for fear of victimisation, said he had decided to investigate when he saw a driver of a private funeral parlour and a grieving family waiting for hours with no one to attend to them.
“The was no one on duty. I walked to the front desk and saw the employees’ attendance register with four names of employees who were all booked for leave.
“They left the gate unlocked, and the doors of the mortuary, cold storage and control rooms were also standing unlocked,” said the source, who is familiar with the workings of a mortuary.
Earlier this week the Dispatch team visited the morgue and found the main gate closed but entry could be gained through a portion of the fence that had collapsed. Once inside one could walk around the facility and enter the building, the cold storage, record rooms and offices without hindrance.
A member of staff who also asked to remain anonymous told of their dire working conditions.
He said there were body tissue samples lying around the morgue that had been there for a while.
“Some samples date as far back as 2011 and they have not been analysed.
“It is not whole organs but small pieces of human organs like liver, brain, kidney and heart that are just lying around there.
“The Human Tissue Act of 1983 does not allow for organs to be stored like that,” said the insider.
Their problems, said the source, had to do with the fact that the facility’s manager was not qualified for the position.
“Sometimes the temperatures for the fridges are not correct and bodies decompose.
“We then have to tell family members stories about why their loved ones are in the state they are in,” said the source.
The source said clothes of the deceased were packed together in plastic bags and not separated as they should be – as sometimes investigators would need the clothes for DNA testing.
“There is no dissection equipment, the trollies are falling apart. As staff, we are not even vaccinated as we should be. There are no annual TB follow-ups,” the source added.
In 2011, the Dispatch published a month-long investigation into the state of public mortuaries.
Woodbrook was considered one of the worst of the 14 morgues visited.
The investigation revealed that the morgue was filthy and staff did not have the required equipment to do their jobs.
The Eastern Cape department of health this week admitted that the gate leading to the premises was faulty and said the department was waiting for the contractor to come and fix it.
Provincial spokesman Siyanda Manana said the facility had been left unguarded because they needed to allow Buffalo City Metro workers to repair the mortuary’s broken pipes.
“The infrastructure is being attended to. Workers of the municipality were going and out of the premises. Obviously there would be a mess when people are working on plumbing.”
Thembalethu Mpahlaza, the regional co-ordinator for state mortuaries, confirmed that an admin clerk was running the facility but promised that this would change next week.
“ is going back to his position as an admin clerk,” Mpahlaza said.
Mpahlaza said they were not aware of any human organs lying around in the morgue. He said he only knew of “neatly packed” blood samples that were kept for various reasons.
Manana said there had been improvements since the Dispatch investigation.
“Equipment has been bought, more vehicles have been bought and the res-ponse time has been improved,” he added. — siyab@dispatch.co.za / zwangam@dispatch.co.za