Autopsies: extra staff deployed to assist
THE provincial health department says additional staff will be deployed to assist with the cases still awaiting autopsies at the Tygerberg mortuary following last week’s strike.
This comes as the unions representing forensic pathologists at the Tygerberg, Salt River, Worcester, Wolseley and Hermanus mortuaries reached an agreement with the department at the weekend.
The workers had downed tools over wages and what they described as unfair working conditions and staff shortages.
The strike in the province began on Tuesday causing bodies awaiting post-mortems and autopsies to pile up.
The move by the workers followed the national strike action within the essential health service, resulting in 123 bodies at Salt River and Tygerberg awaiting post-mortem examinations.
Western Cape health department spokesperson Mark van der Heever said that following an agreement, their forensic pathology officers had returned to work
“There are still cases awaiting autopsies at our Tygerberg mortuary and to address this backlog, pathologists will be performing more than the daily number of autopsies.
“We have since managed to do away with cases caused by the backlog and normal service resumed at our Salt River mortuary,” said Van der Heever.
Frustrated families in Gauteng had to secure court orders to force post-mortems at state mortuaries in order to get bodies for burial as the strike by about 180 forensic assistants dragged on.
“To address this backlog, we will be adding additional staff to assist. This, combined with the releasing of unidentified bodies, where autopsies
Members accepted the terms due to the positive negotiations
were done and have remained unidentified for longer than 30 days, for pauper burials, will enable us to reduce the backlog,” Van der Heever said.
He said the backlog would be done away with completely during the course of the coming week, keeping in mind more/new cases are also being admitted.
National Education, Health and Allied Workers Union provincial secretary Eric Kweleta said a provisional agreement has been reached between workers and the department.
“Our members accepted the terms due to the positive nature of the negotiations and to assist families waiting to bury their loved ones they returned to work.
“The points of contention were the dissections and autopsies with which workers will now assist under the supervision of a pathologist,” said Kweleta.
He said working with the pathologists was the first step with their members receiving the support they required to return to their duties.
Kweleta said workers were returning to work to help ease the pressure of the province’s mortuaries, while discussions would continue to iron out the details pertaining to the agreement.