Funeral undertakers embark on nationwide strike today
No removal of corpses, burials
There will be no removal of corpses from hospitals or homes, no burials and no funeral supplies as funeral parlours across the country embark on a shutdown over several grievances with the government.
The Unification Task Team (UTT ), formed by funeral undertakers forums and other formations, has threatened a total shutdown today over a list of demands it has directed to the departments of health, home affairs and the environmental affairs. The funeral parlours taking part in the strike include some of the big names such as Kings and Queens, Lala kahle, B3 funerals and BJ funerals.
The task team is demanding transformation of the industry, amendment of municipality bylaws to accommodate the building of bulk, cluster or complex storages, the government to allocate a Covid-19 relief fund for the funeral industry and undertakers to claim and be paid directly by the Road Accident Fund using the session agreement.
Peter Matlatle, coordinator for the task team, told Sowetan that government has failed to respond to their letter of demands sent last week. He said only the department of health had contacted them and arranged a meeting that would only be held on Thursday. Matlatle said there will be demonstrations in all public facilities and mortuaries nationwide by more than 3,000 members participating in the strike.
“We will not be doing burials, transportation of bodies across provinces or collections from homes, hospitals or mortuaries,” said Matlatle.
He said this would mean that the public would have to rely on the SA Police Services forensic team to pick up bodies all over the country.
Task team spokesperson George Dlodlo said today’s shutdown will target government mortuaries and all other big hospitals and government facilities in all nine provinces.
Health department spokesperson Popo Maja said health facilities do not release human remains to private funeral undertakers unless they produce a certificate of competence.
“Recently, there has been reports of challenges in relation to removal and collection of human remains from health facilities to private mortuaries/ funeral undertakers’ premises by private funeral undertakers and agents,” he said.
Maja said in terms of regulations, no person shall prepare or store any human remains except on approved funeral undertakers’ premises or mortuary in respect of which a certificate of competence (COC) has been issued by the relevant local authority.
“District and metropolitan municipalities, through their municipal health services units, have got powers to monitor compliance of mortuaries and funeral undertakers’ premises to the regulations in their area of jurisdiction to ensure possession of a COC for protection of public health,” Maja added.
“We cannot say with certainty what will be the implications of the threatened strike. Anyone who obstruct public officials to perform their duties will be dealt with.”
SA Funeral Practitioners Association said despite forming part of UTT, they would not be part of the shutdown.