Mathepe Maake and her sister Priscilla Thobakgale have been sleeping on the cold pavement outside the Hillbrow mortuary for the past seven days.
They arrived from Limpopo last week to arrange for the body of their 33-year-old niece, who died last Thursday after suffering a respiratory disorder, to be taken home to her family.
An already grim situation has been made much worse by a go-slow among mortuary workers, which is believed to have left decomposing bodies piling up on top of each other.
The bodies cannot be released until postmortems have been conducted. Mortuary assistants, who have no official forensic or medical training, say their job is to assist forensic pathologists recover, store and process bodies and to document evidence and information. Yet for years they have been called on to cut open and stitch up bodies, as well as take toxicology and tissue samples. On Thursday last week, they refused to continue doing this unless they were compensated.
Thobakgale, who was among several families camped outside the Hillbrow mortuary this week, said the family had wasted R3,500 hiring a hearse to transport her niece's body to Limpopo. "On Tuesday night we were told to prepare ourselves as the body would be released the following day."The hearse came all the way from Limpopo, but the body was not released, so it had to leave again.
Staff at some of Gauteng's 11 mortuaries this week told the Sunday Times that decomposing bodies were being stacked on top of each other and fridges had stopped working.
Hillbrow, Diepkloof, Germiston and Roodepoort mortuaries are believed to be the worst affected.
"The situation is very bad. Some of the bodies have started to decompose. Seven South African National Defence Force personnel came to assist on Wednesday but they did only four dissections. When we do the work we dissect 16 bodies a day," said a worker.
An assistant from Diepkloof mortuary said he and his colleagues had no option but to put the bodies on top of each other as there was no space in the fridge.
"As of Wednesday night we had 63 corpses. That is three times higher than our busiest weekend."
The Gauteng health department sent two SANDF personnel to help. The Pretoria morgue had 172 corpses, but no military staff were deployed there."We understand the trauma these families are going through and we sympathise with them, but we are tired of promises and not being heard by our superiors," said another worker.
The families of Yizo Yizo actor Jabu Kubheka and veteran blind Comrades Marathon runner Richard Monisi have also been affected by the go-slow.
Kubheka's funeral — scheduled for Wednesday after the actor apparently committed suicide on Monday afternoon — had to be postponed because his body had not been released.
And Monisi's brother Morris was camped outside the Diepkloof mortuary this week after the athlete was killed in a hit-and-run incident. "Must we use violence in order to get our people from the morgue? We've been patient for days but no one is taking this matter seriously," an angry Morris Monisi said.
Lawyer Andries Nkome, who is representing 180 mortuary workers, said he had been approached by workers from seven other provinces who were in a similar position.Earlier this year Nkome applied for an interdict preventing the health department from forcing workers to dissect, eviscerate and stitch up bodies at mortuaries in Gauteng. He said the case had been due to be heard on June 5 but was postponed after the department failed to file its responding papers.
Cecilia Mathebula has been reporting to the Diepkloof mortuary in Soweto every day for the past two weeks, hoping to take home the body of her one-year-old nephew Bandile.
"I have never experienced such pain. Losing someone is painful enough, but this wait is killing us," said Mathebula, from Freedom Park in Soweto.
The boy died at Baragwanath Hospital four days after suffering burns.
While the health department did not respond to questions this week, Nehawu spokesman Khaya Xaba said the union had met with the department on Thursday. It was agreed mortuary officials would do postmortems only under the supervision of a doctor. They would receive training and would be registered with the relevant body.
"When it comes to compensation, the department is still going to decide if it will pay these workers a lump sum or pay them over a period of time," Xaba said. "We are meeting again with the department next Thursday, when they will give us a date for implementing this, and tell us how they will compensate workers."..