GAUTENG mortuaries are still battling with unidentified bodies.
The provincial health department has been forced to find new ways to deal with this problem to ensure all bodies are claimed and identified.
The department plans to finalise development of an online system to assist in the identification of unclaimed and unidentified bodies at public mortuaries towards the end of this year.
Spokeswoman Kwara Kekana said: “There was a slight decrease in the number of unclaimed and unidentified bodies in the 2020/2021 financial year, which can be attributed to the Covid-19 lockdown.
“In that financial year, there were 898 unclaimed and unidentified bodies recorded, lower than 1 173 recorded in the previous financial year, and 1 117 recorded in the 2018/2019 financial year,” she said.
“There was also a decline in the number of bodies stored at government mortuaries in the 2020/2021 financial year, with 16 243 bodies stored for the period, which was less than 18 324 in the previous financial year and 17 940 in the 2018/2019 year.”
The department said the Gauteng Forensic Pathology Information Management System would provide various services that will include recording, tracking and reporting demographic data of the deceased persons and generate autopsy and toxicology reports.
Kekana said: “The department hopes the implementation of this system will reduce the number of unclaimed and unidentified bodies in government mortuaries which continues to increase. The forensic pathology services works with South African police to trace families of the deceased people. This also includes the use of fingerprints for identification purposes.”
