The wife of Wazim Ray Ramjattan, who died of COVID-19 and was mistakenly buried by the family of another fatality of the virus, is upset after the body was purportedly identified by a relative.
According to the man’s sister, the body was exhumed at approximately 10:00 hrs yesterday and that a relative ‘positively’ identified the body to be Ramjattan. But Devika Sukhu, who is Ramjattan’s wife, is not accepting the relative’s word and says a photo should have been taken. She also says that the relative was wrong to identify the body without her permission.
Sukhu explained to Stabroek News that she was supposed to identify the man’s body but her brother-in-law approached her and took the document before identifying the body. Sukhu said that she is upset and uncertain of whose body was identified to be her husband.
“I am his wife and I didn’t get to see if is he is down there. He brother-in-law take the paper and go and said is he. He never take out no picture to show if is he. And these days you don’t even trust a soul. I don’t know what is going on,” the frustrated woman lamented. Sukhu added, “I, the wife is supposed to identify if that body, [that] my husband is there. That didn’t happen this morning… he [her brother-in-law] walk in the burial ground. When we do catch we self, everything done happen”. She said that now she doesn’t know what can be done for her to get to identify her husband.
Meanwhile, Ramjattan’s sister said that knowing that her brother has been positively identified has brought her some closure. “We did find a sort of closure because we got to know that yes he is there. It’s some sort of closure, not 100 per cent because we still didn’t get to see him for the last.”
This newspaper previously reported that Ramjattan, 35, was rushed to the hospital on March 29, after he complained that he wasn’t feeling well. Sukhu had said that he was pronounced dead on arrival by a staffer but they were unclear what health issue caused the death until they went to retrieve the death certificate on April 9. By this time the man’s body was already relocated to the Memorial Funeral Home where it was supposed to be awaiting burial by the family.
The family related that they did not get to view the body until the day of the burial and this was only possible after they protested that they wanted to see the body for identification purposes. Sukhu’s sister-in-law made the discovery after she saw the body. But the funeral home insisted that the body only looked different because he was in there for a long time. The family did not accept the explanation.
Sukhu said that the funeral home then investigated the issue and found that the body given was that of 44-year-old Inteaaz Umar, who had died from COVID-19 on April 3 at the Liliendaal Infectious Diseases Hospital. With these revelations, Sukhu said they requested that the body buried in Umar’s stead be exhumed.
Ramjattan’s family said they were informed that Umar’s family was diagnosed with the respiratory disease and therefore could not leave their home to retrieve Umar’s body. For this reason two relatives who had not contracted COVID-19 went instead but they did not view the body to identify it to be Umar.
