South Africa is facing a problem of a high number of unclaimed bodies at government mortuarie s. This emerged when the Portfolio Committee on Health, briefed parliament on Wednesday, revealing that more than 3 000 bodies remain unclaimed to date.
KwaZulu-Natal reported the highest number of unclaimed bodies, followed by the Eastern Cape.
Forensic pathologist and Limpopo Chairperson of the National Forensic Pathology Services Committee, Dr Thakadu Mamashela says, The bodies that were talking about, are lying in forensic pathology services mortuaries and these mortuaries are responsible to render medico-legal investigations of deaths for all unnatural deaths, meaning all these violent related deaths from road accidents, inter-personal violence, homicides.
If a person goes missing and is not reported as such by a family or a community, that again becomes a problem because SAPS are not able to investigate such a case. One of the investigations that they would normally conduct is to check through the forensic pathology services, if this kind of a person has been reported missing is either alive or deceased.
