Africa-Press – South-Africa. Chris Hani Baragwanath Academic Hospital has been given 90 days to facilitate the exhumation and reburial of a deceased patient.
Acting Public Protector Advocate Kholeka Gcaleka found the hospital failed to notify the family of Nhlakanipho Sibusiso Goqo of his death and ultimately gave him a pauper’s burial.
Gcaleka released several investigation reports on Friday.
Goqo was buried on 4 February 2020 by Homeward Bound Funeral Home. He was admitted to the hospital on 14 November 2019 and died on 23 November 2019.
Baragwanath never notified his family of his death and subsequent burial because of incomplete details regarding his residential address.
The evidence indicates Goqo’s body remained in the hospital’s mortuary for more than 30 days before he was buried as a pauper while family members were looking for him.
Gcaleka found the hospital failed to comply with the provisions of Baragwanath Hospital Circular 35 of 2017 of compiling and publicising Goqo’s death notice in local newspapers via the office of the hospital’s public relations officer, Nkosiyethu Mazibuko.
There was no evidence the hospital made a list of unclaimed bodies available to Mazibuko for media publication, Gcaleka found.
“Although the Baragwanath hospital management indicated that it has since put measures in place, it was established that no formal process existed at the time of Goqo’s death,” she said.
Gcaleka also found the CEO, Dr Nkele Lesia, endorsed the practice by which the logistics director supervised and signed off on the pauper’s burial process as the health officer, although there was no formal delegation in this regard.
Appropriate remedial action
“The conduct of the Baragwanath Hospital constitutes maladministration relating to the failure to publicise the notice of death as required. The appropriate remedial action is taken [that] within 90 calendar days after the issuing of this report [Lesia] to facilitate the exhumation and reburial of the body in consultation with the family.
“… and also obtain authorisation from the local government in whose jurisdiction the exhumation and reburial will be conducted in accordance with the regulation of the National Health Act,” Gcaleka ruled.
The hospital was also ordered, within 90 calendar days after the issuing of this report, to review and align Circular 35 of 2017 under the heading “the procedure for dealing with pauper and indigent corpses” relating to the timeframes for pauper’s burials.
The Public Protector has taken cognisance the hospital has already acknowledged that it did not publish the pauper’s burial list.
As a result, it has put measures in place to rectify these processes by drafting a standard operating procedure for mortuary services and designing a quality improvement plan.
The Public Protector Act provides that persons implicated in an investigation by the Public Protector are to be allowed the opportunity to make representations.
A response was received from Lesia on 14 December 2022.
After receiving Lesia’s response, Gcaleka later ruled against the hospital.
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