Mortuary calls...
I spent all of my lockdown time in Kumasi. Of course, anyone who knows the city well knows that in normal times, not a Saturday passes without funerals taking place all over. It is almost as if the obligatory uniform for residents is black, with splashes of red here and there.
Aside from the usual funeral hotspots such as Heroes Park, Jubilee Park and various school parks, many other final funeral rites take place on the streets with parts cordoned off with the permission of the Kumasi Metropolitan Assembly (KMA).
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Today, Kumasi, like Accra, looks almost eerie because of the lack of the usual crowds and brisk business activity. But the lack of the quasi-obligatory black cloth seems to have sapped something extra out of the city’s soul.
Kumasi, funeral capital
Usually on Saturday morning, the deceased would be seen off via a rather elaborate pre-burial affair starting at dawn, before being escorted to church for the burial service and then finally to the cemetery, after which a short break occurs before the afternoon session kicks off.
On Sunday, after the thanksgiving service, there is a reconvening in the afternoon. Black and white is the prescribed dressing for the day. With the grander affairs, there is usually a posh buffet dinner to round up the weekend.
Of course, funeral activities are not restricted to weekends in the Ashanti capital. Every day of the week, there is a one-week commemorative event somewhere, which in many cases has assumed the status and grandeur of a full-blown funeral.
What this means is that at every point in time in the city, black cloths are ubiquitous, and that further means that those in the funeral business, including cloth vendors, hirers of canopies, chairs, ice chests, funeral donations box and others are assured of brisk business.
Airlines and hotels also cash in on the weekend funeral industry. Kumasi easily wins the title of the funeral capital of Ghana.
Complaints
The other day, a friend called me, quite upset. His grandmother's funeral had been arranged and the President's order banning funerals came just a week to the event, when they had already spent so much and those abroad had bought their tickets.
He could not fathom a burial of the family matriarch with just 25 people in attendance, because he believed she deserved more.
The family had, therefore, decided to sit out the order until whenever it was lifted so that they could bury her 'properly' and then have the funeral rites the same day.
I have every reason to believe that in many parts of the country, especially in the Akan areas, this scenario is played out. Ordinarily, when a family decides to bury its deceased relative is a matter for the members to decide.
But these are not ordinary times. Inevitably, and over time, bodies will pile up in our mortuaries because families are staying put. That in itself is likely to create an entirely different, but equally terrible, avoidable public health crisis.
There are horrible stories of dead bodies being left outside on the streets in Guayaquil, western Ecuador as the city struggles with the mortality rate of the coronavirus pandemic.
Mercifully, our mortality rate from the virus is very low, but unless we take drastic action, a backlog accruing from 'regular' deaths could cause us distress.
Positive news
In all of this, I came across two heart-warming pieces of news the other day. First, the Police Hospital issued a press release announcing an imminent burial by the hospital of all bodies that had not been claimed from its mortuary over a period of time.
This is commendable because it frees up vital space. But I believe it must not be left to individual hospitals to decide when to decongest their mortuaries by releasing unclaimed bodies. A directive from the Ghana Health Service to all public hospitals would, I believe, go quite some way.
Then there was a news item concerning some coffin makers who were arguing that some families wanted to organise burials in line with the presidential directives, but were finding it difficult to secure coffins because coffin makers had not been listed as essential workers and, therefore, could not open their shops to cater for the demand for coffins.
It is clear that if families are allowed to bury their dead, then coffin makers, as a key part of the funeral value chain, must be allowed to operate because their services are clearly essential.
Of course, they would have to operate within the framework of the necessary social distancing and hygiene protocols, but operate they must.
Now with the lifting of the lockdown announced by the President last Sunday night, the situation should ease up in the affected areas.
'First in, first out'
It appears that we are not going to be out of the woods anytime soon to justify a lift on the ban on funerals. My view is that beyond disposing of unclaimed bodies and enabling coffin makers to operate to take care of those who wish to bury their dead in these times, we must do more.
As an urgent public health imperative, families should initially be encouraged and eventually compelled to make arrangements to collect their deceased relatives from the mortuary for burial within a certain time frame from arrival.
At the very least, this 'first in, first out' policy must apply to the public hospitals. Who knows, perhaps this public health imperative might eventually shift attitudes away from the practice of keeping deceased persons in the mortuary for months on end before burial.
After all, the concept of keeping wake, previously a funeral staple, has effectively disappeared.
Culture vs reality
I can imagine and I do understand my friend's anguish over the fact that to bury his grandmother in these times would strip away all the grand layers associated with it - teeming crowds in the family house from dawn while she is laid in state, the traditional protocols associated with that process, a packed church for the burial service and his aunts and uncles abroad and in other parts of Ghana being able to see their mother's face for the last time before her coffin is closed.
These seem literally ingrained into our social fabric with respect to our funerals as rendering a certain status.
But then we do not live in ordinary times, as has been said time without number. Almost every aspect of our lives is undergoing fundamental change and some of these changes will become part of the new post-pandemic order and settle down as the new normal.
Burials and funerals cannot possibly escape the consequences of this pandemic.
To the cultural purists who may be aghast at the concept of an early burial, perhaps it is important to note that before the arrival of the technology for preservation of bodies that goes with mortuaries, deceased persons were buried relatively quickly.
There is no reason certain practices cannot continue to evolve in response to various challenges and opportunities.
Allowing families to hunker down and ride out the pandemic with respect to burials almost presumes that the space in our mortuaries, whether public or private, is finite.
Of course it is not. A family's ability or willingness to pay mortuary fees for as long as it takes should not be what drives this issue.
A clear balance must be struck by the State between family interests and sensitivities on the one hand, and the public good on the other.
Rodney Nkrumah-Boateng
E-mail: [email protected]