|
Welcome
Taphophilia (dot) Com...
A repository of morbid curiosities:
Thanatology and Taphophile Issues, Cemetery,
Funeral Industry and Death Related News.
A Taphophilia Thank You...
Taphophilia (dot) Com would not be possible without the knowledge, experience and talent of DarkestWeb. From its conception and early development, DarkestWeb was faced with many challenges; from inspiring and motivating, to providing guidance and direction. The continued dedication and support has produced results greater than ever expected, and for this, I owe a huge debt of gratitude.
Announcements
Graveyards of Chicago:
The People, History, Art, and Lore of Cook County Cemeteries
By Matt Hucke And Ursula Bielski. Discover a Chicago That Exists Just Beneath the Surface - About Six Feet Under! Take a tour of Chicago's permanent residents! Please visit the Lake Claremont Press website to purchase your copy of Graveyards of Chicago today!
Green-Wood Cemetery Arcadia Publishing announces the release of Alexandra Mosca's historic account of one of New York's most famous cemeteries. Aracdia Publishing's Images of America series has an extensive catalog of many cemetery publications! Please visit Arcadia Publishing to purchase your copy of Green-Wood Cemetery and to browse other available titles!
Men of Mortuaries Calendar
To purchase your 2008 calendar, learn more about the KAMMCARES Foundation, or to be featured in the 2009 calendar, please visit Men of Mortuaries.
Epitaphs: The Magazine for Cemetery Lovers By Cemetery Lovers
For information regarding subscriptions, single issues, submission guidelines, deadlines, classifieds or advertising for future issues, please visit The Cemetery Club.
Guardians of the Soul: Angels and Innocents, Mourners and Saints, Indiana's remarkable cemetery sculpture
with photography by John Bower and foreword by Claude Cookman is now
available. Please visit
Studio Indiana for more information.
West Springfield Massachusetts: Stories Carved in Stone by Rusty Clark features information on early New England gravestone carvers with more than two hundred photos and illustrations. Please visit the Dog Pond Press website.
|
|
Scam Unearthed At Hospital Mortuary |
|
|
|
|
Written by DeadGirl
|
|
Tuesday, 07 September 2004 |
The Herald (Harare)
September 6, 2004
Tsitsi Matope
Harare
A HARARE Central Hospital doctor, mortuary attendant and some police officers are being accused of demanding payments for post-mortems that are conducted free of charge in all Government hospitals.
The mortuary attendant and police details are also accused of smuggling out close to $1 billion worth of chemicals, including sprays and gloves, used in the mortuary, which they allegedly sold to private funeral parlours.
Mortuary attendants are also reported to be contracting out the incineration of baby corpses to private funeral parlours in return for kickbacks.
But instead of incinerating the bodies, the funeral parlours were discreetly taking back the bodies to Government hospitals for incineration to cut costs.
Harare Central Hospital only incinerates bodies of babies or foetuses from its own wards and nursery.
Over a month ago there was a deadlock between the police and doctors who refused to conduct post-mortems on behalf of the police in deaths where foul play was suspected.
Parirenyatwa Hospital was the worst hit with the doctors claiming that they wanted incentives to conduct post-mortems, which, they insisted, were the responsibility of the police.
However, their requests were still to be considered although reports have since surfaced that some police officers based at Harare Central Hospital were conniving with a certain doctor at the institution to demand payments from relatives of the deceased or risk having the bodies held indefinitely in the mortuary.
The Herald called one senior police officer on the pretext that they had a relative who was due for an autopsy and wanted to know how long they would have to wait.
"Why do you listen to what people say ambuya? You can just come togara pasi toronga (We can sit down and discuss)," the police officer (name supplied) said.
The officer, who was impatient to know when the meeting would take place, repeatedly asked the time he should meet with this desperate family.
According to reports, post-mortems have been performed on over 30 bodies after relatives had agreed to a "negotiable" payment.
It is understood that certain police officers who booked the post-mortems made it clear to relatives of the deceased that bodies were piling up because there was no pathologist to replace Dr Alex Mapunda who retired in May this year.
After faking a complication, they then offered to do the relative a favour by requesting for assistance from a certain doctor.
They then disappeared before returning with information that the doctor had agreed to conduct the post-mortem provided the family paid $1 million.
Harare Hospital Medical Superintendent Mr Chris Tapfumaneyi confirmed receiving such reports against mortuary attendants.
Asked what the hospital was doing to bring the culprits to book, Mr Tapfumaneyi said: "We are only able to carry out effective investigations if the people who were made to pay the money can come forward and help us in our investigations.
"We have also tightened our supplies of chemicals to the mortuary to monitor how they are being used."
He said doctors had made it clear during a series of meetings with some Government officials, including the police, that they wanted to be paid for such services.
"But this was not considered and made official for people to pay, which makes any demands for payments very illegal and subject to an investigation."
Mr Tapfumaneyi said the hospital had promoted the particular doctor recently on the basis that he had shown a great deal of commitment to his work by offering to conduct post-mortems.
"If he is indeed involved in this alleged scam, it is unfortunate," he said.
Police Assistant Commissioner Killian Mandisodza said they had received a complaint from a man who wanted an autopsy conducted on his relative suspected to have been murdered in Epworth.
"One of our officers is said to have created an artificial complication although in our investigations it was not clear whether money was demanded. We have since had the officer transferred from the hospital police post," Asst Comm Mandisodza said.
He urged people who could have been duped out of their money to report the cases to Harare Central Police Station to assist investigating officers to nab the culprits involved in this scam.
http://allafrica.com/stories/200409070756.html |
|
