A mourner appeared; body needs to be exhumed
“After I work on this, I do not go out at night, very seldom if it's an emergency," Agustin Campos said as he rested from throwing the dirt to cover the graves of Los Cazabes.
After working constructing niches in the Cristo Redentor cemetery, he began last year at the morgue in the Inacif to earn RD $ 16,100 per month. “Morguero” they call the one who receives the body, enters it in the refrigerator or delivers it to their relatives.
- One can easily go out into the street at night and get killed, because the streets are very dangerous - he said.
-You said you also worry about watching the news, why?
-Because the boss said: It is good that you watch the news, because that’s how you find out and learn more (of the corpse that will reach you).
- Do not you need the liturgy, the tears, the words of farewell?
-It touches me a little, because I was already forced to see the burials.
The absence of a relative or friend who regrets death can be reversed on the least expected day. Relatives who were looking for an absent relative end up in the offices of Inacif, anxious to know if he is dead.
They are isolated cases.
Some time ago Dr. Núñez attended a citizen. He said that his relative had been killed.
-How do you know he was killed? Nunez asked.
-Because he had enemies.
The doctor stood up and searched the registry for tentative dates of death. Verified the records of the autopsies of strangers. After he classified them, he warned the interested party. There was a lady who was willing to see the photo archived of the corpse but broke into tears. Her son gathered courage and said: “I'm going to see the photographs”.
They approached the computer. They reviewed three cases and they were not of the relative. When they reached the fourth one in which the image of a fresh body was seen, the man said: “That's my brother”.
- Are you sure? the doctor asked him.
-Yes.
- Ok, this is your brother, how did you recognize him?
- Because he had a tattoo, a scar ...
Núñez reviewed the photographs and certainly it was man’s brother. The man began to cry; He told the lady and she collapsed. The body had to be exhumed.
The doctor does not consider exhumation to be more complicated than the autopsy. If the remains are in a niche, the closing seal is broken; if they are on the ground, a person is to be unearthed.
The family took the coffin to the cemetery. The skeleton was removed and put into the new box. They took him to the morgue to finish the certification process.
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Would it be more feasible for the State to cremate the unclaimed corpses? - we asked the director general of Inacif.
"As far as I know an incineration, or rather cremation of a corpse costs RD $ 50,000 in the private sector (Diario Libre confirmed the amount). The cost of establishing and maintaining this process for the State would have to be analyzed. And in the long term I think it can be more expensive because the land is reused " - Gerdo replied.
When it says that the land is reused, it refers to what takes place in the El Ingenio de Santiago cemetery, where after a while the bones can be removed and accumulated in an ossuary that looks more like a cistern.
In this cemetery RD $ 2,000 must be paid every four years to renew the rent of a municipal niche. If it is not done and the niche is needed, the bones are exhumed. The bones are deposited in covers or bags to which a plastic bottle containing a paper with the data of the deceased is attached as identification.
Last December the ossuary overflowed its capacity. There were small sacks stacked between the tombs and some other bones scattered around.
Those unclaimed bones after a long time can be donated to the universities for the use by medical students.
Ideally, the Inacif should have its own cemetery or dedicated areas within existing ones for better management, considers its CEO.
Gerdo reported that the proposal to build continuous niches for Inacif has been created, an idea that was developed after training in Peru, where a team traveled and learned how to improve these processes. From that experience the pilot of the type of packaging that was made to A-1119-2017 was adopted. Dealing with forgotten corpses is a situation that other countries such as Honduras, Chile, Spain, Puerto Rico and Mexico.
The forensic Lebrón said that the mayor of Santo Domingo Norte authorized last December to build niches in Los Cazabes, with capacity for 120 openings, in a first stage.
Despite the plans, Dr. Núñez is adamant in stating:
-The interest of the State is that each person takes care of their deceased.