New and chilling realities mark the disaster of the obituary services of the province of Santiago de Cubawhere the lack of fuel, the shortage of medical supplies and the deterioration of transportation keep funeral homes crowded and morgues plunged into indolence.
Apart from the anguish and pain caused by the fatal outcome, Raisa suffers from the insensitivity of those who left her mother’s coffin abandoned in the La Punta cemetery, because the cart carrying the body broke down and when night fell the gravediggers left for their home.
“The image was horrendous; cold as the soul of the people who forced us to place their remains on the floor, and who were evicted at the door of the cemetery,” said the young woman, recalling between tears and broken sentences the end of the woman with the who lived together for 29 years.
Álvaro also witnessed another shameful burial. Lacking a hearse, they took their father-in-law in a cart pulled by a mule to the Siboney cemetery.
“When we arrived there was no one there and we put the box on a small wall while the person responsible appeared and the burial was prepared. That day they put the lid on the knob. VWe forgot the stage where people said goodbye to their dead on foot, without flowers and pulled by a beast“He said dismayed.
Marbelis is another woman from Santiago who is overcome by despair. After her mother passed away He couldn’t perform an autopsy because she did not have enough money to buy the needle and thread that cost 700 pesos, and she needed at least six sealed packages.
“As if that wasn’t enough, they told me that she would be buried near Seville and at the last minute they changed the burial to El Cristo, because they had made a mistake and there was no space there. For that reason my children were not able to say goodbye to their grandmother and no one offered an apology,” she recounted in the midst of her sadness.
Danay and Gilberto had worse luck: their sister died at the Ambrosio Grillo Hospital and they went to wait for her at the funeral home. After almost 18 hours they demanded a response and no one knew what to say to them.
“Without even looking up or showing the slightest sign of kindness, one official told us: ‘Every day many bodies arrive with wrong names and addresses. We, like you, are waiting, without violating anything and complying with the procedure,'” Gilberto explained.
After another two hours, Danay was called to the funeral home management to identify the remains, since the car that was transporting her had broken down and had to leave her at the Saturnino Lora Hospital morgue.
Once again the suffering took shape, but now with a mixture of indignation and anguish for the insensitivity with which the authorities face the loss of human life.
A municipal official waited for them and apologized. She then informed them that due to the seriousness of the violations, they had sent work teams to all the hospital admissions departments, with the aim of stopping the loss of bodies.
In the La Arenera cemetery, both said goodbye to their relative, but by dropping a flower on his grave “They felt disgust for a State that disrespects the dead and disregards the pain of its citizens.”
The situation with deaths is chaotic
On the afternoon of June 26, In the Provincial Hospital of Santiago de Cuba there remained almost two dozen corpses with more than 15 hours of waiting And, despite the complaints, the Government had no solution and had to wait for the state companies to complete their work and the private carriers their routes.
A A similar situation was presented by the morgues of the Juan Bruno Zayas Hospital, the Ambrosio Grillo Hospital and the Joaquín Castillo Duany Military Hospital.where autopsies are not performed either due to a lack of scalpels, reagents, sutures and other resources.
Incineration is hardly ever authorized because the delay is so long that sometimes The bodies remain lying on the floor of the crematorium for up to 48 hours.sometimes due to lack of gas and other times because, of the 18 hearses in the territory, there are days when none of them work.
An employee of the Bartolomé Masó Funeral Home acknowledged that “The situation with deaths is chaotic, since there is no way to get the coffins out of the hospitals and take them to the cemeteries”.
The situation is made worse by the fact that most of the cold storage rooms in the province are broken and the bodies cannot be preserved, which contributes to their decomposition, giving off bad smells and creating unpleasant situations.
The obituary services crisis This includes the supply of sugar, coffee, flowers and even ink and the rest of the resources used to make the cushions and wreaths. In the absence of wood, the sarcophagi are often sealed with cardboard covered in cloth.
Since the beginning of the year it is common that coffins are placed in hallways and on chairsdue to overcrowding.
Several videos posted on the social network Facebook show moments in which the sarcophagi fall in the middle of the street because the cars are not in good condition and the drivers violate their responsibilities.
The families of people who die at home face a worse situationbecause they must first wait for the Medical Examiner to issue the death certificate, and then for the transport that will transport the body. These procedures usually take more than 24 hours, not counting the time of the wake and the time to get to the cemetery.
Despite the claims and complaints of the mourners, The issue remains under strict censorship that borders on disrespect and disorganization in healthcare.
Until minutes before the funeral procession left Nobody knows where the bodies will be buried.since in the Santa Ifigenia Cemetery six to eight remains can be buried daily due to lack of space in the niches and vaults.
Currently Most burials are made in open pits in the ground and the burials are diverted to the necropolises of the towns of El Caney, El Cristo, El Cobre, Juan González, Boniato and Siboney.
