Funeral parlours overwhelmed
JOHANNESBURG - Funeral parlours say burials have increased like never before during the third wave of COVID- 19 and, the recent deadly riots in KwaZulu- Natal and Gauteng, have contributed to a shortage of coffins.
One funeral home said it sometimes has to wait with families for graves to be dug, due to the backlog.
Funeral parlours say the third wave of coronavirus i nfections has seen them burying more people than ever before. Vuyo’s Funeral Services’ Vuyo Mabindisa said; “The third wave has exponentially increased in terms of mortality. Even some of the cemeteries they can’t cope with burials. They dig the grave while the families are there but it’s because there’s too much death not that they can’t.”
Burials have previously usually happened on weekend, but this has now changed, and families are encouraged t o bury t heir l oved ones during t he week.
Vuyo’s Funeral Parlour said t hey bury at least 20 people every day.
Mabindisa said, “you’d bury about six/ seven a day, weekend you’d bury 30 but with this wave we have spaced our funerals each day except Monday we bury more than 20 people per day.” The r e c e nt unr e s t i n Gauteng a nd KwaZulu- Natal has also added to the backlog. “Most of the raw material and classic coffins come from Durban so since the riots were in Durban and the M3 was closed there was a shortage of coffins and we started to panic buy and that affected the supply of coffins,” Mabindisa said.
The Fune r a l I n d u s t r y Ref o r med Association said it had also been struggling to get medical reports and death certificates. While the situation has improved, the association says another problem looms, as storage facilities are fast becoming overwhelmed.
F u n e r a l I n d u s t r y Re f o r med Ass o c i a t i o n ’s J o h a n Rous s e a u s a i d : “A hospital in terms of the law needs to have a cold room facility and they don’t have that. We genuinely plead wi t h g o v e r n ment a n d t h e p r i v a t e sector out there to create these facili t i es so t hat a deceased person can be treated dignified and with care.”