Mortuary manager suspended after wrong body taken for burial

The manager of the Medico-Legal Mortuary in Gale Street‚ responsible for a horrific error‚ was suspended on Tuesday.

She was suspended after she refused to assist a family that took the wrong corpse for burial.

KZN Health MEC Dr Sibongiseni Dhlomo said in a statement that the manager was suspended because of “her failure to give leadership on numerous occasions in cases pertaining to her duties”.

The MEC had to intervene on the weekend after the issue was aired on SABV TV. He said the manager failed to act after being approached by junior officials.

The manager also failed to act after it was discovered that rats were disfiguring corpses at the mortuary.

This despite three bodies displaying bite marks were discovered earlier this month. Further inspection of the facility revealed that all the cold room door rubbers were damaged by rats‚ but nothing was done about the problem.

The MEC said: “We really cannot keep a person without empathy in such a sensitive environment. Here we need people who will appreciate that even the departed have a right to dignity.

We simply cannot keep a manager who fails to show leadership and cannot take decisive action to resolve challenges. Our sympathies go out to all the affected families.”