What sets morgue workers apart?
You need a strong stomach to face bodies on the slab
THE reception area at the Heidelberg gover nment mortuary could easily be mistaken for a suite in an upmarket office park. There is no smell of death, no coffins in sight nor is there an eerie atmosphere and the Saturday Star team sits in a well-ventilated area on chairs placed neatly next to each other on a tiled floor polished to perfection.
A handful of forensic officers go through paperwork and prepare to start the day shift. This office is one of 11 government morgues in the province that is earmarked to undergo renovations and maintenance.
In September, the Department of Health announced R8.8 million had been allocated for this project.
It includes replacing old cold rooms and installing new fridges at district hospitals and clinics.
The project also includes a new state-of-the-art morgue that will serve as an academic training centre for employees.
But the department’s Forensic Pathology Services units, such as this one in Heidelberg, are no ordinary offices.
They are often filled with loud wailing, screams and sobs from people who have identified the bodies of loved ones.
Staff deal with a mountain of body bags and clean, scrub and label corpses.
Rooms are filled with endless fridges packed with dead men, women and children.
“When you come in here, you can’t even tell that this is a mortuary,” says Aaron Shongwe, the acting manager of the facility.
He has worked for the Gauteng Health Department’s Forensic Pathology Services for 14 years. Shongwe’s daily duties include conducting a body count and ensuring operations at the morgue run smoothly.
“I come in every morning and I check how many bodies were brought in overnight and are in our cold rooms. We have also a freezer for decomposed bodies. I also check which bodies are ready to be collected.”
Some of the bodies that come in overnight come directly from car accidents or crime scenes in neighbouring areas such as Ratanda, Nigel, Devon and Zonkiziwe informal settlements while others have been referred to the unit from morgues at nearby hospitals.
Those who perish in prisons are also brought directly to the morgue.
Alongside Shongwe are forensic officers Happy Molefe and Happy Mphephyane.
They are two of the six staff members at the morgue who handle bodies and work with pathologists on eviscerations (to remove organs).
Before a family collects a body the officers identify and register the corpse and assign a pathologist to conduct a post-mortem or an autopsy to establish the cause of death.
Families are then required to bring in their identity documents, the death certificate and other vital documents.
Shongwe says this is to ensure families are given the right bodies.
“At times you’ll find that family members have had a dispute. One person wants to claim the body without the acknowledgement of the others.
“We work according to the law and those who are given authority to collect the body,” he says.
Molefe and Mphephyane make it known that no one can ever be prepared for this kind of work.
“During my first two months, I couldn’t eat meat. It was very difficult considering that I handle body parts,” Mphephyane says, chuckling as he recalls how many people literally ran away during the recruitment process.
Molefe adds: “When you apply for the job and come in for the interview the first places you are taken to are the cold rooms and the fridges. I think that process is what separates the people who are just here for the money and those who actually want to do the job.”
There are ample challenges for all the 450 officials who work in the province’s mortuaries and deal with 1 736 corpses monthly.
Staff shortages, lack of adequate resources and non-compliant communities often hamper their effectiveness.
They are often blamed and even assaulted by community members for allowing a body to lie at an accident scene for hours.
On some occasions, the forensic officer’s pathology services vehicles have been targeted.
“Forensic Pathology is the last link in the chain when it comes to dealing with dead bodies. Mem- bers of the family often blame these guys for being late. But in actual fact, when an accident takes place, police must first step in and take account of the accident, perform all the necessary duties and only when everything has been completed can our guys come in and collect the body. When they eventually do this they also have to ensure they do their work right,” says Gregory Phashe, senior manager of corporate affairs at the department of health.
While the Forensic Pathology unit was previously handled by the SAPS it was handed over to the health department in 2006.
Phashe says this is to allow thorough work to be conducted and to cut out the red tape and delays that often occur between two departments.
Forensic officers also often have the challenge of dealing with unknown bodies.
There are stringent rules. Families have up to 30 days and a further two months grace period to identify and collect bodies. If this time lapses, the deceased are buried as paupers by the government.
Sala Tsimane, an operations manager at Forensic Pathology Services, ensures all 11 mortuaries in the province run smoothly.
He adds the department will be formalising the training of all forensic officers and ensuring that they are accredited with the Health Professions Council of SA.
Currently, anyone who wants to be a forensic officer has to have a matric and undergo a few tests and an interview.
After hours of talking, Shongwe, Tsimane, Molefe, Pashe and Mphephayne take the Saturday Star team for a site walk. The fridges are neatly mounted. Shongwe brings out a tray full of tools that almost resemble garden and construction tools.
“We use this sledgehammer to cut the skull open,” Shongwe says.
Forty-five minutes later the Saturday Star team arrives at one of the largest Forensic Pathology Services mortuaries in the province.
The Diepkloof morgue located opposite the Chris Hani Baragwanath Academic Hospital has been there for 30 years. During the apartheid era it largely served the community of Soweto.
Today it receives bodies from as far away as the East Rand and Orange Farm. This year alone up to 2 500 bodies have been handled by the 22 forensic officers who work at the morgue.
A young pathologist explains how the post-mortems work. He doesn’t want to be named as he has handled murder cases. The worst cases he has seen were a suicide by a young teenager and a child that had been sexually assaulted.
He believes the refurbishment of mortuaries will go a long way towards improving capacity. He conducts most of the eviscerations.
But he adds this has to be done with precision.
“There are times where we have to remove the body parts to look for bullets that are wedged in between the vital organs,” he says.
Other challenging cases include dealing with burnt corpses and trying to trace the identity of a person.
He adds that most of the causes of death he has seen have been alcohol related.
“People have no idea how much alcohol is a contributing factor. From this job my greatest lesson is that people should never drink and walk or drive.”
With him are female forensic officers Makupelo Masoma, a mother of three, and Portia Ziqubu, a mother of two, from Jabulani. They speak of how brave they have become.
Many say this job can only be done by men. “But we have also learnt how to carry heavy bodies. We are tough enough to handle corpses,” they say.
They take the team through a large area filled with fridges that resembles a slaughter house.
Unlike in Heidelberg, the pungent smell of corpses wafts through the air.
The blood that oozes out of corpses during autopsies is hosed off and bins of waste and body bags are neatly packed in a room.
Ziqubu and Masoma have bodies from February that are yet to be collected. They are being prepared for pauper burials.
All the forensic officers across the provinces take their work in their stride.
Someone has to do it.
Nothing prepares you for working in morgues Most causes of death are alcohol related