Measures have been put in place to finalise the development of an online system to help identify unclaimed and unidentified bodies in state mortuaries.
The online system, which is developed by the department of health in Gauteng, will further assist cut down on overcrowding in the mortuaries.
The department said the Gauteng Forensic Pathology Information Management System would provide services including recording, tracking, and reporting demographic data of the deceased. It will also generate autopsy and toxicology reports.
“There was a slight decrease in the number of unclaimed and unidentified bodies in the 2020/2021 financial year, which can be attributed to the Covid-19 lockdowns,” said the department in a statement on Thursday.
There were 898 unclaimed and unidentified bodies recorded in the past two years, said the department, which was 275 less than the 1 173 body count recorded in the 2019/2020 financial year.
A drop of 2 081 in the number of bodies stored in government mortuaries was recorded in the 2019/2020 financial year compared with the 18 324 bodies recorded in the 2018/2019 period.
Forensic Pathology Services have joined forces with the police to find the families of the deceased. Fingerprints are also used to identify the deceased.
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