Accidents, stabbings and suicides place strain on Limpopo's forensic pathology services

The Limpopo health department on Friday said its forensic pathology services (FPS) were battling to deal with postmortems “due to a high number of deaths due to unnatural causes” in the province. 

The department said these were putting a strain on the FPS.

Spokesperson Neil Shikwambana on Friday said many of these deaths were attributed to accidents, stabbings and suicides.

“Due to the high number of postmortems the FPS needs to perform before bodies are released to families, the process often leads to backlogs, which makes the process take longer than families expect,” Shikwambana said. 

“This often leads to run-ins between families and the department. The department requests for understanding and co-operation from members of the deceased who need postmortems before burial.”

The department urged families to liaise with pathology before finalising burial dates.

It said it is aware that families prefer to bury their loved ones as soon as possible to save on costs and to help them find closure.

On Friday, health MEC Phophi Ramathuba was expected to visit the Groblersdal Hospital FPS where the bodies of at least 15 people killed in an accident involving two taxis and a truck were to be received.

The taxis were carrying pupils.

Ramathuba's office said she was heading there to “support the hospital as it embarks on identifying the deceased and for postmortems to be done in time”. 

TimesLIVE