INTERNET 1, ASSIGNMENT 2

A RECENT DAILY DISPATCH FRONT PAGE PHOTO OF A BABY THAT CAUSED A LOT OF CONTROVERSITY


CORPSES piled high , dead babies left to rot in waste buckets, organs left out in the open, and staff exposed to deadly diseases on a daily basis.
These are the horrifying facts exposed after a month-long Daily Dispatch investigation into State- run mortuaries in the Eastern Cape.
Now this newspaper can exclusively reveal how horrendous practices are carried out every day at the province’s mortuaries.
Exasperated staff members are overburdened by heavy workloads and sheer managerial incompetence. In all laboratories visited no managers were on site.
The investigation – which took the Dispatch from Lusikisiki to Port Elizabeth – can also reveal the harrowing conditions that provincial mortuary employees are subjected to.
Poor management, a disinterested Health Department and financial restrictions were cited as reasons for the unfolding crisis.
The conditions are so bad that workers from the Lusikisiki Forensic Pathology Laboratory have to fetch water from a river 4km away to clean bodies, trays and tools. This same mortuary has had 13 bodies stored in its packed freezer for more than a year – all showing signs of advanced decomposition.
Legislation only allows bodies to be stored at a State-run morgue for a maximum of 90 days.
Another morgue has had toxicology samples – crucial in murder investigations – stored in its fridge for the past six months.
The Woodbrook Forensic Pathology Laboratory in East London had bloated cadavers on gurneys – some on top of each other – lining its walls.
Often the suffocating stench of death could be smelt from the Eastern Cape morgue’s parking lot.
It was also discovered that morgue employees often handle corpses without protective gear such as masks, aprons and gloves that are prescribed by the Occupational Health and Safety Act.Grievances by morgue employees include insufficient cleaning material and a failure to vaccinate employees working with the dead.
The department employs a total of 172 workers in 13dissecting mortuaries and 11 holding facilities.
They have to deal with over 11000 bodies a year.
The mortuaries and holding facilities are all funded through a conditional grant and for the last financial year received R73506000.


WAS DAILY DISPATCH RIGHT OR WRONG IN PRINTING THE PHOTO


This shocking front page photo of a baby in a dirt bin from the Daily Dispatch caused an uproar and got people taking. The main question here is whether The Daily Dispatch was right or wrong in printing the photo? in my opinion I think it was right, reason being that people and the government got to see exactly what is happening in state-run mortuaries and took steps to curb and prevent the problem. Just a day after The Daily Dispatch had printed the photo, the provincial health department had done a complete turnaround in the shocking state of government mortuaries, if it was not for the photo such steps would not have been taken. 

The photo brought many questions about safety in the state-run facilities. This has been an ongoing problem that people have been facing for  quite some time now and only a little is done about it. The state is failing to do their duties as they should, they always wait for something as drastic as this to happen before they take action. This should be the first step towards correcting the hman rights injustices that have been uncovered and work towards restoring human dignity in our societies.