×

We've got news for you.

Register on SowetanLIVE at no cost to receive newsletters, read exclusive articles & more.
Register now

Body left to rot in hospital storeroom

SAD REMINDER: Mbulelo Zimba holds the ID book of his uncle Sipho Jwara, who died at the Randwest Care Centre in Randfontein last Friday. PHOTO: BAFANA MAHLANGU
SAD REMINDER: Mbulelo Zimba holds the ID book of his uncle Sipho Jwara, who died at the Randwest Care Centre in Randfontein last Friday. PHOTO: BAFANA MAHLANGU

A KAGISO family was shocked when the body of a relative of theirs was left in a storeroom to rot at the Randwest Care Centre in Randfontein on the West Rand.

Sipho Jwara, 44, had been an in-patient at the psychiatric hospital for more than 20 years.

Family spokesman Mbulelo Zimba said they received a call from the hospital last Friday, informing them that Jwara had died.

"We went there but were told that we could not take the body because there was no doctor to sign the death certificate. We were told to come back on Monday," he said.

The family returned on Monday but to their surprise assistant nursing manager Trudy van der Merve could not locate the body.

"She assumed that Doves Undertakers had collected the body because the hospital had an arrangement with them," said Zimba, who is a nephew of the dead man.

On Tuesday they received another call from the hospital that the body had been found. They rushed to the hospital with their own undertaker.

The body was located in a storeroom and it was in a state of decomposition.

The centre's spokesperson, Marietjie Shelly, said yesterday that there had been a communications breakdown between the hospital and family.

She said Jwara's aunt told the hospital that they had their own undertaker and would collect the body last Saturday.

"The procedure that the care centre follows in such a case, where the family chooses to collect the body the same or the next day, is to keep the body in a private holding room.

"In that case the procedure would have been for the centre to have arranged with Doves for collection. As the holding room is away from the wards, nurses thought the body had been collected as arranged with the family," she said.

Would you like to comment on this article?
Register (it's quick and free) or sign in now.

Speech Bubbles

Please read our Comment Policy before commenting.