Funeral parlours are running out of coffins as Covid and looting take their toll

Looters made off with at least  50 coffins, worth an estimated R300,000, when they hit Vuyo Mabindisa’s funeral parlour in Soweto last week.

“About 60% of the coffins were recovered but they were damaged so we can’t use them. I feel sad that because those places were looted, many people are now going to lose their jobs.”

He said the survival of his business was under threat, as it was increasingly challenging to get more coffins.

“Due to the riots, we are now struggling to get coffins because the manufacturers cannot get the raw materials to make them. We now have to postpone funerals,” he said.

Funeral parlours were already under pressure before the looting, due to the high number of Covid-19 deaths.

More people are dying. There are no coffins, so that means we are going to have a bottleneck in our mortuaries.

—  Soweto funeral parlour owner Vuyo Mabindisa

According to the SA Medical Research Council (SAMRC), 17,250 deaths were recorded between July 4 and 10, up from 16,090 the previous week.

“More people are dying. There are no coffins, so that means we are going to have a bottleneck in our mortuaries,” said Mabindisa, who owns Vuyo’s Funeral Services.

Before the third wave hit, Mabindisa, who is also the spokesperson for the SA Funeral Practitioners Association (SAFPA), said his company was doing six to seven funerals a day. But now that the third wave is in full swing, that number has increased to 20 funerals a day.

“The third wave has been the worst one. During the first two waves the death rates went up, but now our funerals have gone up by 90%. We are not coping at all.”

“We are even negotiating with government to take in more bodies at the government mortuaries.

“I have about 160 coffins left and I do 20 funerals a day, so in the next few days I will run out.”

Mabindisa said they had to resort to conducting funerals on condition that the families provide them with protection.

“The family members escort our cars, so it’s either we postpone or you protect us.”

Sonja Smith, MD of the Sonja Smith Funeral Group, said they were conducting 10 funerals a day compared to the four or five previously.

“We are very worried. Because of the riots our supplier in KwaZulu-Natal said they could not deliver coffins due to the roads being closed.

“I have about 50 and another 50 are on order, so I hope I will get those soon. At the rate funerals are going at the moment, they are going to be finished soon. If we don’t receive the coffins in time, it will create a bottleneck of cremations, because you can’t cremate someone without a coffin.”

Smith said her employees were also not spared the virus.

“It’s been rough, because I had Covid, my husband was in hospital and my staff got sick at one stage. Last month, there were 11 of us who were in isolation at the same time, so circumstances are very difficult.

Pieter van der Westhuizen, GM at Avbob funeral service, said they had to shut most of their offices in the hotspots due to road closures this week.

“Our operations have been disrupted specifically in KwaZulu-Natal. In Gauteng, our services were slightly less interrupted and we were servicing our customers as per usual.”

Van der Westhuizen said funerals at Avbob in Gauteng had increased by 110% compared to the first wave in July 2020.

“We are doing double compared to July last year.”

He said after “proper planning” the company was coping with the escalation in deaths.

“We are coping. We have enough cold storage because we brought in four additional containers in Pretoria alone, that each carry 30 people.”

Aboo Sayed from the Saaberie Chishty Burial Society in Lenasia said under the circumstances they were “coping well”.

“We have a number of volunteers, both male and female, who assist us with washing and shrouding the bodies. People are getting a bit burnt out but so far so good.”

Sayed said they were conducting on average about eight to nine funerals a day.

“There are definitely more funerals now in the third wave, but we don’t use coffins so it’s not a problem for us.”

Sayed said on the first day of the riots they were a bit anxious, but they have everything “under control”.