By Robert A. Emmanuel
The House of Representatives has passed an amendment to the Public Health Act to address the growing number of corpses unidentified and unclaimed by family members at funeral homes.
Health Minister Sir Molwyn Joseph told Parliament on Monday, “This came about from what I consider to be an unfortunate set of circumstances in Antigua and Barbuda today, where we have individuals at the hospitals and some people who have passed on, and there are no family members coming forward to claim the bodies.
“And what has happened over the years is that the funeral directors have written to the government on the situation where many of these bodies are kept for months, and sometimes years.
“This bill seeks to place an obligation on the government that, when there is an unclaimed body over a period of time, having made public that the person is deceased and there is no one who steps forward, the government takes the responsibility of arranging the burial of that individual,” the Health Minister stated.
Attorney General Steadroy Benjamin said an additional law may be passed in the future to penalise persons with relatives at the Fiennes Institute who “turn their back on them completely”.
“Come for them once a year, some fly in from New York, from England, go take the people from the houses there, carry them Kentucky Fried Chicken and take them back and that’s it, but they go down to Social Security and claim their money—we are going to stop that,” the Attorney General declared.
The bill received numerous amendments from members of the opposition, particularly St John’s Rural West MP Richard Lewis and St Philip’s South MP Sherfield Bowen, who had concerns over the time period allocated for persons to claim deceased relatives prior to burial by the government.
They also raised concerns that the legal change could cause more individuals to leave their deceased loved ones at funeral homes, knowing that the government will pay the bill for laying them to rest.
“You might very well see many unclaimed bodies, and I am very concerned about that where people would say ‘I am not claiming because I know the government will take care of it’.
“We do not have a choice as a government because the reality is that we are facing the problem now,” Sir Molwyn expressed.
The bill now states that the Chief Health Inspector shall order a human corpse to be buried 45 days after an initial 14-day period during which notices will be published calling on persons to claim the body.
The bill also makes provisions for the burial costs to come out of the deceased’s financial assets, including Social Security, and where there are no known assets by the deceased, the government will bear a “reasonable” cost.
