Only dissection section remains closed at Free State government mortuary

Only the dissection areas at the Free State government mortuary in Bloemfontein remain prohibited from operation by the department of employment and labour, said the provincial health department on Thursday.

The mortuary, managed by the department's forensic pathology services directorate, was closed down in October last year because of failure to meet occupational health and safety standards. The closure disrupted the normal flow of services and affected the turnaround for performance of postmortems as the dissections of bodies were performed at different sites. 

Provincial health spokesperson Mondli Mvambi said despite the prohibition, the mortuary did all it could to lessen the turnaround for families to receive the bodies of their next of kin and prepare their burials.

He said on April 1, government mortuary managers made representations to the labour department on progress made to address the occupational health and safety violations that led to the closure of the mortuary.

“As a result of this engagement, the department was satisfied with the intervention and progress made.”

Mobile air conditioners were installed in the administration block. This resulted in the department acceding to the request to open the mortuary’s administration block, fridge storage facilities and loading area as of April 7.

“The government is now using the mortuary except that it cannot use the dissection areas until further notice. This is owing to the outstanding fixing of the heating, ventilation and air conditioning in dissection areas, which is currently at project bid evaluation stage,” Mvambi said.

It is anticipated that bid management processes will be completed soon for the winning bidder to start by no later than the end of May.

Mvambi said the project to return the mortuary to full operationalisation was a priority.

Autopsies were being performed at Welkom, Kroonstad and at the University of the Free State.

“There’s no backlog and relations with undertakers are well maintained.”

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