By Laurel Sutherland
The family of a man who died of COVID-19 is now trying to recover his corpse which was mistakenly buried by the family of another fatality.
In addition to only being notified of the cause of Wazim Ray Ramjattan’s death a week and a half after he passed, the family says hospital authorities also failed to advise them to isolate themselves and get tested in the interim.
Ramjattan, 35, died suddenly on March 29th at the Georgetown Public Hospital and the family has said his body has not been seen since then.
Shortly after telling his wife, Devika Sukhu, that he was feeling unwell, Ramjattan was rushed to the hospital, where he was pronounced dead on arrival by a staffer. According to Sukhu, they were unclear what health issue was responsible for Ramjattan’s death — because he had no underlying conditions — until they saw his death certificate, which stated that his cause of death was COVID-19. This, Sukhu said, was accepted until the family horrifyingly discovered that they almost buried a body that was not Ramjattan’s. Now all information they were given is being questioned.
During an interview with Stabroek News, Sukhu recalled that the last time that the family saw Ramjattan’s body was the day he died. After he was pronounced dead by a hospital staffer who was on duty at the time, she said, they were told to leave the hospital. They then proceeded to the Alberttown Police Station to report the death. While at the station, they were informed that the body would be taken to the Memorial Funeral Home and the following day they decided to visit the funeral home to ensure that the body was there.
However, family members were told that they needed to get the death certificate from the hospital in order to see the body and they proceeded to do same. Sukhu recalled that they called the hospital several times but were told that the death certificate was not ready. They subsequently proceeded to the Alberttown Police Station to get some assistance and were told to go to the funeral home. According to Sukhu, the back and forth between the funeral home, hospital and the police station continued until April 9, when they were informed that the death certificate was ready and that they could retrieve it at the hospital.
Shocking discovery
Sukhu said that they did same and it was only then that they learned that Ramjattan died from COVID-19. It was a shocking discovery for the family because at no point between March 29 and April 9 were they called and told to isolate or get tested for the virus as is the protocol. While at the hospital they were also told that they had an issue with the death certificate as it required a signature of the person who pronounced Ramjattan dead. They then learned that the person who made the pronouncement was not a doctor and therefore could not put his signature on the document. This caused an issue as the doctors did not want to put their signature on a document when they did not make the pronouncement, according to Sukhu.
Nevertheless they accepted the explanation and that Ramjattan died from COVID-19. Given the lengthy wait, the family wasted no time in making funeral arrangements but when they went to retrieve the body from the funeral parlour, they were told that they received no information about releasing the body but this was eventually cleared up. However, they were still advised against viewing the body because of his cause of death.
According to Sukhu, they protested and were allowed to see the body for “a second” for identification purposes and it was then that they discovered that the body was not Ramjattan’s. “My sister-in-law went and saw that the body was not Wazim Ray but someone else,” Sukhu recalled before adding that they told this to the funeral home and they were told that it was Ramjattan’s body and he only looked different because he was in there for a long time. She said they insisted that it was not Ramjattan’s body because he had a tattoo and the corpse had no tattoo. This prompted the funeral home to begin trying to locate the body.
Following investigations, it was later found that the body the family was being given was that of 44-year-old Inteaaz Umar, who died from COVID-19 on April 3 at the Liliendaal Infectious Diseases Hospital. According to Sukhu, on Monday they were told that Umar’s entire household was diagnosed with COVID-19 and therefore could not leave their home to retrieve his body after his death. As a result, they sent two relatives who had not contracted the disease but made it clear that they were scared to identify the body. Nevertheless they did so on April 4 and the body identified by Umar’s relatives was soon buried.
With these revelations, Sukhu said they have since requested that the body buried in the stead of Umar’s be exhumed and this was scheduled for yesterday. However, the hospital called the family and informed that the pathologist was in the backdam, so the exhumation was cancelled.
“This matter is very urgent. Now we want answers. Why did the hospital keep Wazim Ray if he is indeed dead from the 29th and only give us papers on the 9th of April? We have not seen him since he died. How is it that Mr Inteaaz died on April 3rd and his body was handed over as fast as the 4th? Where is Wazim Ray and is he dead or alive? All they are doing is calling to say that they are sorry but we just want to know where our brother and husband is. We need justice, action and the time is going. They say he [Ramjattan] died from COVID. Why haven’t they advised the family to be tested? Nobody come here to make sure that we are following protocols. None of that was done. In fact they refused to give us information and then refused to allow us to see him, so we need answers because we have a lot of questions,” Sukhu stated.
