A woman’s grief turned to anger on Sunday when she went to a city funeral home to dress her father’s corpse for his funeral service and found that her family had been given the wrong body.
Kumarie Pooran told Stabroek News that the mix up left her very frustrated, particularly since it took several hours to rectify the situation and left limited time for the viewing of the body before the cremation.
According to her, the body was expected to be at Sandy’s Funeral Home from Friday, after the post-mortem examination, until Sunday, when his funeral was scheduled. However, the body of her father, the late Deonauth Pooran, was taken to Jerrick’s Funeral Home instead.
Kumarie said that with persons waiting to view the body, she experienced such frustration and sadness that she could no longer take part in dressing her father’s body and instead waited for the officials at the home to carry out the task.
The woman also accused an agent of the funeral home of causing delays and trying to frustrate her before turning around and asking for a “raise,” even though he did not carry out his job well.
She noted that the agent was in possession of a Sandy’s badge and also present at the funeral home when she turned up to make payments, all of which indicated to her that he was a member staff despite company officials describing him as a “tout”.
Managing Director of the home, Christopher Lord, told Stabroek News that the incident was the first of its kind under his management.
He explained that when he was contacted and told of the situation, an investigation was launched and immediate efforts were made to have the situation remedied.
He believes that an error was either made at the Georgetown Public Hospital (GPH) or with the misidentification of Deonauth Pooran’s body by the relatives of the other deceased person.
According to information received, Lord noted, a distant relation of the other deceased person had identified Pooran’s body as her relative, causing the officials at the hospital to label his body as their relative before sending it off to Jerrick’s Funeral Home.
Lord stated that immediately after realizing what might have taken place, he put the needed measures in place and met officials at all levels to fix the problem. After a few hours, he said, the situation was rectified and they were able to put things in place to ensure that Pooran’s cremation was carried out on the day as planned, since it was an emotionally hard situation to endure.
According to the man, on the same day he spoke with another relative of Pooran and gave a refund.
Lord later shared that the “agent” Kumarie Pooran has made reference to is a contracted employee. He was unable to comment on what the individual might have said or done while in the presence of Pooran.
