Gauteng Health and Wellness MEC Nomantu Nkomo-Ralehoko says they are recruiting 200 unemployed youths to assist in converting written post-mortem reports into digital files.
She says this will assist the judiciary in deciding on court cases and also reduce police case backlogs especially those related to murder.
There have been increasing complaints from the public about the delays in getting post-mortem results from Gauteng mortuaries which they say affected burial arrangements.
Nkomo-Ralehoko says the average time of admission to examination of a body is 72-hours and this excludes exceptional cases that require advanced investigations such as multiple gun shots, murder, and rape cases which result in delays in the issuing of bodies to families.
“We are aware of some of those undertakers that do not have resources such as freezers. Some of them have been giving [making] grieving families to pay for their services when instead keep the bodies in our facilities. And come collect those bodies on Friday, knowing the funeral is on the next day.”
“They are enjoying this backlog of post-mortems in our facilities. They are creating it in fact. We’ve heard from reliable sources that they use this opportunity to cash in on grieving families by requesting that they pay an extra R2000 with a promise that they will engage our mortuaries to prioritise the case of their families,” Nkomo-Ralehoko adds.
