FLOTSAM AND JETSAM

Forgotten dead bodies show ‘lack of empathy’

MUMS know best!

Beachcomber heard of a conversation between a mother and her daughter who returned home from the dentist.

Daughter relayed she was told not to consume alcohol and grog for the next month.

“Good, that means you’ll have money to buy me McDonald’s this weekend!” was Mum’s quick reply.

THE sad stories and serious issue of the dead left behind and forgotten in Fiji’s morgues is because of a growing lack of empathy, and disregard for loved ones.

This is the view expressed by Assistant Minister for Women, Children and Social Protection, Sashi Kiran during an interview on The Lens@177.

“When I first joined, I had a letter from Aspen because at that time, it was normally when there are unclaimed bodies, then our ministry used to bury them, so that’s where the approach was made,” she said.

“There were eight bodies lying in Lautoka at that time, and Aspen, out of frustration, had written to me and then we facilitated the process of final rites for about four bodies.”

She said there were also four unclaimed bodies at CWM, and they had tried to finalise a process for the bodies to undergo final rites.

“We’d reached out to organisations and Sanatan Dharam had come forward and said we are happy to do the final rites as most of them are people of Indian origin. But there’s a process to it.

“So, the Ministry of Health, you have to call out for relatives, you have to do the legal work. Otherwise, somebody can come back and say, why did you bury the body?”

Ms Kiran said as soon as all the legalities were done, the final rites would be carried out.

However, she said it was very sad to see people being “left like that”.

“They must have had connections, relationships. Some of them died at home, so people knew they died, and they were brought to CWM. And you will see some of the people in our aged care homes are people who come from places where they have family members. They are neglected and left in homes of state care.

“So generally, there is neglect, and something has happened to our society that it’s broken down so badly that we’re leaving the elderly, people living with disabilities and dead, the way we have,

“I’m hoping that we can have a consciousness where we can shift it.”