GOVERNMENT BURIALS ON THE INCREASE

Deserted At Death – Public Hospitals Forced To Foot Burial Bills For Dumped Patients
Published: Sunday | November 25, 2012 0 Comments

Gravedigger Irtol Titul stands next to the coffins of people killed in clashes during the May 2010 incursion in west Kingston. -AP
Tyrone Reid, Senior Staff Reporter

Scores of persons abandoned in life at public hospitals are also deserted at death, leaving the health facilities to bear the cost of burying these persons whose relatives do not turn up to claim their bodies.

Between early January and mid-September of this year, the Kingston Public Hospital (KPH) spent close to half a million dollars to provide pauper burials for more than 40 of its patients who were abandoned by their relatives.

“Between January 8 and September 18, a total of 44 dead bodies had to be buried by the hospital. Of that total, six were unknown males while only six were women,” said Dianne Duke, acting patient affairs manager at the KPH.

“If you have abandoned patients, you’re going to have abandoned dead bodies as well,” added Buela Stevens, CEO of the KPH.

She continued: “We have to pay to bury them and get burial orders from the RGD (Registrar General’s Department). It is a cost to the institution.”

Stevens told our news team that there are times when the hospital gets the person listed as next of kin to come in, but it all goes downhill after that.

Relatives mIssing in action

“Sometimes you do have one or two visits before and then once the person is dead, you have to call for the next of kin to come in, and when they come in and get the information, they don’t come back, and when you call there is no response,” Stevens revealed.

“Each time we bury (one of the patients) in a pauper’s burial, it costs about $10,000,” added Stevens.

It is not clear whether the costs and hassle associated with private burials might be too daunting a proposition for very poor families or if there are other reasons for the abandonment. Costs for private burials, on family plots or in established cemeteries can run close to $200,000.

Mark Martin, chief executive officer of the Spanish Town Hospital, told The Sunday Gleaner that his facility has had to underwrite the burial costs for eight of its abandoned patients.

Everton Anderson, the chief executive of the Cornwall Regional Hospital in Montego Bay, St James, faces a similar problem.

“Since the beginning of 2012, the hospital has funded burial expenses for eight deceased individuals deemed as indigent,” said Anderson.

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