‘Government should keep bodies in its morgues’ — blackouts, fuel costs lead to high risk of decomposition

08 February 2023 - 11:42
By Sinesipho Schrieber
The Johannesburg forensic pathology services medico-legal mortuary in Hillbrow, Johannesburg. File photo.
Image: Alex Patrick The Johannesburg forensic pathology services medico-legal mortuary in Hillbrow, Johannesburg. File photo.

The costs of preventing bodies from decomposing before burials have become a “terrible expense” for funeral parlours while they suffer from constant blackouts and fuel price increases.

Daphney Mavayela, manager for Mabona Funerals in Soweto, told TimesLIVE ensuring that fridges which store dead bodies remain operating during power outages came at a high cost to the business.

She said they spent R1,000 a night on diesel for generators to prevent bodies decomposing.

With loadshedding implemented daily, Mavayela said many businesses were overwhelmed by the expenses.

She said government should consider storing bodies in state morgues exempted from loadshedding to lower the risk of decomposition.

“During intense loadshedding, government can keep bodies at state hospital mortuaries because they are not affected by loadshedding and some have generators. The parlours would take the bodies closer [in time] to a funeral. This would assist many struggling businesses,” Mavayela said.

The parlour has been operating for more than 15 years and has solar panels for office administration work. Mavayela said their panels were not enough to supply power to their morgue and they had to rely on generators during loadshedding.

Money paid by clients was not enough to cover rising costs, she said.

“It is not easy for parlours to increase prices because there is a lot of competition and businesses are not doing that well.”

She said she was also worried about bodies parlours sometimes receive from homes and hospitals in a bad condition.

“Those corpses usually decompose very quickly.

 “I would like to see fuel prices going down because aside from buying diesel for the morgue, there are cars we use for operations. The costs are just too much.”

Royal Empire Funerals owner Teboho Ditabe told TimesLIVE he spent just under R30,000 a week to keep the lights on at three parlours.

Ditabe, from Naledi in Soweto, said his business suffered sustained power outages due to loadshedding and load reduction implemented by Eskom in high density areas.

“The bodies are facing a much greater risk of decomposition because of the power situation.”

The member of the National Funeral Practitioners Association of South Africa said the biggest challenge for parlours was the cost of diesel needed for administration work and morgues.

“It is a terrible expense for us. It kills us as a business but we have a responsibility to ensure the bodies do not decompose.

“Smaller parlours that do not have morgues are in trouble when they want to outsource a mortuary. They are charged double the usual price because mortuary owners are trying to cover costs.”

The DA and EFF recently urged government to review fuel price determination models.

DA MP Jan de Villiers said the fuel levy should be scrapped to alleviate the burden on small and medium businesses.

“South Africa has one of the most oppressive fuel tax regimes in the world, with a 56% year-on-year increase in prices. This leaves large South African corporations struggling to bear the additional costs of running their generators.

“One of these is Shoprite, which recently spent an additional R560m (R3.1m per day) on diesel during uninterrupted stage 5 and 6 loadshedding over the past few months to keep the lights on.

“If large corporations are struggling, how are small businesses expected to survive this crisis, since fuel has become an unaffordable luxury?”

He said scrapping the fuel levy was not only a matter of keeping the lights on but providing a lifeline to small businesses.