I am writing to you so that you can make my concerns public and do not forget to include my name and surname, so that there is no doubt,” said the complainant. ~ Wednesday June 19, 2024
A serious complaint has emerged from Santiago de Cuba, where the local funeral home does not have the capacity to care for the deceased. Yanelis Rodríguez Semanat, a resident of the Abel Santamaría Reparto, shared her experience after the death of her aunt, seeking to make public the critical situation faced by funeral services in the city.
On Monday, June 17, 2024, Rodríguez Semanat’s aunt died at the Clinical Surgical Hospital at 3:20 in the afternoon. The process of paperwork and transfer of the body lasted until 9:00 at night. According to Rodríguez, the vehicles used for the transfer were vans and pisicorres, since the hearses were out of service, in deplorable conditions.
Rodríguez Semanat reports that, upon arriving at the funeral home, they were located in the hallway of Room I2 due to lack of space, with corpses even placed in the hallways. The lack of available chairs led those present to take turns seating. The funeral home’s cafeteria was also in poor condition, without gas to prepare coffee, which was no longer distributed as before, forcing people to drink it right there if it was available.
The situation of funeral wreaths was equally precarious. The wreaths delivered had dried flowers and the delivery of new wreaths was continually delayed. Even private suppliers could not meet demand, affected by a large order related to another wake.
Rodríguez also faced uncertainty over his aunt’s burial site, as several bodies awaited capacity at cemeteries. The funeral home was collapsed with 21 bodies at 7:00 in the morning and 29 bodies around 10:00. Relatives requested to bury her aunt in a nearby cemetery, but were informed that there was no space available. Finally, his aunt was buried in the Icacos Cemetery in Playa Siboney, almost 20 kilometers from the city center.
Rodríguez concludes his story by lamenting the crisis that affects obituary services in Santiago de Cuba, where the residents of the province are the most affected. The complaint seeks a quick solution from local authorities, including the Directors of Communal Services, the Government and the Communist Party of Santiago de Cuba, headed by Beatriz Johnson Urrutia.
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