Eastern Cape teacher Lulamile Ngqezana.
- A family says it is shocked after it received the body of someone who died from Covid-19, rather than their relative.
- The Ngqezana family in PE said they grew suspicious when the parlour brought the body in a coffin wrapped in plastic.
- The family said the undertaker ripped the plastic open to show them the body – and it was not their loved one.
“They brought us the wrong body of a person who died from Covid-19 and when we pointed out that our brother did not die from Covid-19, they ripped the plastic open and made us view the highly contagious body – we were exposed to Covid-19.”
Those were the words of a devastated Kayise Ngqezana whose family has found itself having to organise a second funeral service in 24 hours after a body mix-up by a leading funeral home, they say.
The Ngqezana family, in Port Elizabeth, said they were shocked when the company Avbob apparently brought a body wrapped in a plastic-coated coffin at the Forest Hill cemetery during a funeral on Sunday.
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“The plastic meant the body was highly-contagious and the person had died from Covid-19. We knew then that they brought us the wrong body because my brother died from diabetes. We couldn’t bury him. They insisted on opening the plastic and made us view the body,” said Kayise Ngqezana.
Five family members including the deceased’s children viewed the body and all concluded that it was not Lulamile Ngqezana’s.
The family discovered during the funeral service that the correct body was somewhere on the road outside Butterworth being transported to another funeral some 350km away.
Lulamile Ngqezana, 62, was the deputy principal and English teacher at Eluthatheni secondary school in kwa Bhaca, formerly Mount Frere.
Lulamile Ngqezana’s family standing outside the Avbob North End offices in Port Elizabeth.
Ngqezana had died in kwa Bhaca in the former Transkei and the parlour was instructed to bring the body to Port Elizabeth for burial.
“Their negligence resulted in this chaos. This is a crisis. Who knows how many families buried wrong bodies because of these blunders?
“Today we are organising another funeral. Yesterday we had a funeral service, but it was cancelled due to this blunder. There were too many blunders yesterday because the funeral parlour also did not even give us a register so that we can list down all the names of the mourners,” said Ngqezana.
‘Contagious’
“We all need to test for Covid-19. We were exposed to the contagious body,” said Ngqezana.
Ngqezana said the funeral home’s driver insisted the family view the body, despite mourners raising fears of exposure to Covid-19. “My uncle insisted they open the coffin themselves from a distance and take a picture and send it to us via WhatsApp. We watched from a distance and we received the picture.”
When opinions differed from the family members over whether it was indeed their loved one in the picture, the undertaker resolved to end the confusion by showing them the body, said Ngqezana.
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Ngqezana said a decision could not be reached by two family members who viewed the body which led to more family members deciding to view for themselves.
In the end, five mourners had stood above the open body and viewed it. A decision was reached that it was the wrong body, said Ngqezana.
News24 was speaking to Ngqezana over the phone while she was at Avbob’s North End home to make sure everything was running smoothly for the second funeral on Monday.
“I am disappointed, no one from the management is here, they are hiding behind their drivers. The drivers cannot answer everything because there is a lot I want to talk about with the management. They are not here.”
News24 made several attempts for comment from Avbob on Monday. The receptionist took the reporter’s details and promised that someone authorised to speak to the media would call. Several follow-ups were made by News24, but the funeral home failed to return the calls.
Three weeks ago News24 reported how a Uitenhage family had to organise two funerals in the space of four days after discovering that they had buried a stranger.
The bungle was allegedly caused by Uitenage hospital mortuary workers after the name tags of the bodies were mixed up.
The hospital refused to allow the widow of one of the men Nomsa Noda, 67, to view the body of her husband Vukile Noda, 79, prior to the funeral, due to Covid-19 regulations.
