The lockdown meant to contain the spread of the coronavirus pandemic has taken a toll on the dead in some Southwest states where bereaved families are lamenting huge bills as private and public morgues come under intense pressure, KUNLE AKINRINADE and TOBA ADEDEJI report.

Yemisi Adelodun is in a dilemma. A few weeks ago, she had shunned entreaties from family members to allow the burial of her grandmother who passed on sometime in March. At a meeting held in their family house in Ifo, Ogun State, she practically turned down the family request for the burial of her grandmother, who before her death, had instructed that her body must not be deposited in a morgue.

But as soon as the aged woman passed on, Yemisi, whose father was the only child of the woman before he too died in strange circumstances 15 years ago, decided to take the woman’s body to a morgue pending the time the family would agree on a date for a lavish party to celebrate her demise. The body was then deposited at the morgue of the State General Hospital in Abeokuta, Ogun State capital.

Her dilemma, however, started a few weeks ago when the state government announced restrictions on movements, processions and social gatherings to curb the spread of the deadly coronavirus disease as directed by the Federal Government. Since then, she has been battling to raise the money needed to keep her mother’s body in the public morgue.

She said: “My grandmother died on March 7, 2020 at the age of 92. Until her death, she was living with me.

“Being the first child of my father, who was the woman’s only child, I felt that she deserved a befitting burial, which was the reason I deposited her body at the mortuary of State General Hospital in Abeokuta, against the wish of her family members who insisted that the woman detested the idea of her body being deposited in a mortuary.

‘’Apart from the initial deposit and the thousands of naira subsequently paid to the mortuary authorities, I still need about N10,000 to defray the cost of keeping my grandmother’s body in the mortuary.

“I am a teacher in a private school in the Yewa area of the state, and with the ongoing lockdown, I have no money to continue to retain her body in the mortuary.

‘’I have pleaded in vain with other family members, who felt that I should handle the situation myself since I shunned their initial entreaties to bury the woman a day after her death in line with her wish.

“Now, what I need is the money to retain her body in the mortuary. And the real problem is that no one knows when the lockdown would end so that we can inter her body.’’

But Yemisi is not alone in the financial stress she has had to face in keeping the body of her beloved grandmother in the mortuary. Pius Adeyemi, a resident of Alimosho, Lagos State, whose father also died on March 15, this year, said his family is regretting the decision to deposit his father’s body in a morgue.

He said: ‘’All of us (children) don’t live in the same place and we had planned to participate in the burial of our aged father because he laboured hard to see us through our studies and did not remarry despite the fact that our mother died when she was only 38 years old.

“That decision has become our albatross because of the huge sum we are now paying to keep his body in a private morgue in the Ojodu area of Lagos State.

‘’We never knew there would be a lockdown over the coronavirus pandemic in Lagos and Ogun states.

“Our decision to keep our father’s body in the morgue was based on the need to have more time to plan for his final burial outing since we don’t all live in the same part of the country.

“The problem now is the bill we are getting for keeping his body in the morgue. So far, we have spent close to N150,000 and there are still additional costs totalling about N70,000.

“If we knew that things would turn out this way, we would have buried him immediately and reschedule the final burial till the end of the pandemic.’’

The case of Adebiyi Williams is not different. When the Lagos-based public relations practitioner lost his mother, Madam Omotola Williams, on March 2, the body of the woman was deposited in a public morgue in Ijaiye part of Abeokuta, Ogun State, while the obsequies released by his family indicated that the deceased woman would be buried on April 17 in their hometown in Imala area of Abeokuta.

However, the event could not hold penultimate Friday because of the lockdown. The cost of keeping the body in the morgue is now the pain that Williams and his siblings are grappling with.

Williams said: ‘’When our mother died in the early hours of March 2, this year, the family decided it was best to give some weeks to make room for adequate preparations for her burial. That was the reason we shifted her burial to April 17 without an inkling that the pandemic would alter our plans.

‘’Now, we have been asked to pay additional N7,000 and we feared that the amount could increase if the lockdown persists. As we speak, my siblings and I are running out of money because no one has worked since the lockdown started.’’

Morgues filled to hilt

The consequence of bodies not claimed on time by the relatives of deceased persons is that quite a number of public and private morgues in Lagos and other parts of the Southwest states are now filled up.

Checks carried out by The Nation at the Osun State Specialist Hospital, Asubiaro, Osogbo, revealed that the morgue was filled to capacity as bodies littered the floor. The interior of the morgue was also filled up as body owners were not able to retrieve them for burial due to the lockdown.

A man, who identified himself simply as Oluwole, told one of our correspondents that he was hoping that the lockdown would be lifted next week so that the body of his mother kept in the mortuary would be buried.

Oluwole said: “My mother died in Osogbo on April 1, 2020, during the first lockdown directive. Our hope was to bury her once the 14-day lockdown lapsed.

“Unfortunately, the federal government extended the lockdown for another two weeks and that has forced us not to bury her.

“I pray that the lockdown would end soon so that we can commit her to mother earth.”

Also, a secondary school teacher in Okini, Osun State, Mrs. Aderonke Aina, who recently lost her father, lamented over the payment she would have to make to the morgue after the lockdown, saying: “I am the first child of my parents and have been responsible for the welfare of my father before his death.

“Even the morgue that we kept him in now, I will be responsible for the payment. We are charged N200 per day at the morgue and our bill is running to N5,000.

“My dad died on March 30, 2020, but because of the restriction order of the state government, we are forced not to bury him that day but to embalm him. ‘’

A morgue attendant, who craved anonymity, said the corpse that was seen on the ground was not because of the lockdown order but bodies are first kept there to be treated before they are moved inside the morgue.

Sources at a private morgue in the Pen Cinema area of Agege, a Lagos suburb, said that many bodies deposited by family members were yet to be collected because of the ongoing lockdown.

A source at the facility, who spoke in confidence, told The Nation that the backlash had been that no payment had been made lately by those who brought the bodies, many of whom cited paucity of funds.

The source said the morgue was crowded with bodies, noting that the situation at the morgue was worrisome.

‘’Many of the bodies were brought by family members who wanted elaborate funeral for their deceased parents. Unfortunately, no one envisaged that there would be lockdown over the dreaded coronavirus.

“Many of them who had initially picked a date this month to throw lavish funeral outing have had to cancel their plans.

‘’As we speak, many bodies in this facility have not been claimed and those who brought them are owing us thousands of naira because they claim they have no money to pay for the bodies kept here.

“Many of them have promised to defray their bills when the lockdown is over.The problem is that there is little or no space to accommodate more bodies because the ones in the morgue have still not been claimed.

What is more worrisome is that we are losing money as a result of non-payment by family members who kept the bodies of their deceased loved ones here.

“We can only pray that the pandemic is contained as soon as possible so the bodies can be claimed and money paid to our firm for keeping them in our facility.’’ (The Nation)

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