I AM a retired hospital employee who has worked in a mortuary. Allow me to comment on the incident at the Serdang Hospital mortuary, where A. Kugan’s body was kept and where the staff allegedly allowed some people to lock themselves in.

Generally, in a mortuary, the staff are very sympathetic in dealing with the next-of-kin. Immediate members of the family are allowed to view the deceased, especially when they request to say a prayer.

Usually, a post-mortem is done on accident victims, unwitnessed deaths or in cases of suspected foul play.

Police will request a post-mortem to determine the cause of death. Some relatives try to prevent a full post-mortem or speed up the procedure for quick release of the body for burial. This is when they approach their community leader, councillor, state assemblyman or member of parliament for help.

The elected representative comes to the mortuary, talks to the doctor on duty, the police officer and relatives of the deceased. All matters are usually solved satisfactorily.

I have not seen elected representatives collaborating with people to give mortuary staff any problems. They only come to the mortuary upon request of their constituents.

I have not come across people forcing their way into the mortuary. Staff will let close relatives in. We can be strict but when another human being breaks down and cries for a lost one, something in you gives way.

I remember an incident similar to the Kugan case. Some years ago, we received a body of a person who had fallen from a tree. The deceased belonged to a now-disbanded deviationist group.

A small group of relatives followed the body. Police had requested a post-mortem on the same afternoon.

Then came a request from the next-of-kin to be allowed to pray for the victim. As the relatives were going into the mortuary room, they were closely followed by a few more men claiming to be from their mosque.

We had no problem with that except that after half an hour, they still had not completed their prayers. They did not heed a request to leave so that preparations could be made for a post-mortem.

Meanwhile, a large group of their followers had gathered in the mortuary compound. Their spokesman told us that according to their religious beliefs, no post-mortem could be carried out.

They said they would sit in the mortuary until the body was released. The body was decomposing in the hot and humid room and we were not permitted to place the body in the freezer.

Amid this stalemate, our pengarah (head of department) consulted the police. We could do the post-mortem with police escort but the police were not in favour. After a long discussion with our pengarah, the police graciously agreed that since no foul play was suspected, the order for a post-mortem would be rescinded.

This move defused a very tense situation. This could have otherwise turned into a racial and religious incident but thanks to the pengarah and police, everything went well.

The MPs in the Kugan case were just doing their duty towards their voters. The police were doing their part. None should misinterpret this incident.

G.S., Kamunting

Source: NST – January 30, 2009