Belgrove calls for proper regulations for funeral industry

SHAL­IZA HAS­SANALI

Se­nior Re­porter

shal­iza.has­[email protected]

Pres­i­dent of the As­so­ci­a­tion of Fu­ner­al Pro­fes­sion­als of Trinidad and To­ba­go, Kei­th Bel­grove, says there are a lot of hor­ror sto­ries com­ing out of the fu­ner­al in­dus­try, which the Gov­ern­ment has to pay clos­er at­ten­tion to.

His com­ment came on the heels of the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice’s ur­gent in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­to the dis­cov­ery of 56 hu­man re­mains found at the Cu­mu­to Ceme­tery yes­ter­day, of which 50 were in­fants.

A re­lease from the TTPS stat­ed that pre­lim­i­nary in­di­ca­tions sug­gest that “this may be a case in­volv­ing the un­law­ful dis­pos­al of un­claimed bod­ies.”

Speak­ing to Guardian Me­dia dur­ing a tele­phone in­ter­view, Bel­grove ad­mit­ted that there are a lot of “dirty sto­ries of fu­ner­al ser­vice.”

And he claimed the Gov­ern­ment turns a blind eye to it.

Bel­grove, the chief ex­ec­u­tive of­fi­cer of Bel­grove Fu­ner­al Home, cit­ed a lack of stan­dards in some fu­ner­al agen­cies which need­ed to be ad­dressed.

“We have se­ri­ous prob­lems, for in­stance, with fu­ner­al homes open­ing every Mon­day morn­ing. No stan­dards. There is a na­tion­al stan­dard by the TTPS, no­body fol­lows it. You can open a fu­ner­al home, if you want, get a van and you’re in the fu­ner­al busi­ness. But you’re risk­ing pub­lic health with what you’re do­ing. We have fu­ner­al homes, some of them ap­ply and get po­lice re­moval con­tracts im­me­di­ate­ly.”

He claimed some of these homes don’t even have re­frig­er­a­tion ser­vices for the bod­ies.

“They turn up with de­com­posed bod­ies for the be­reaved fam­i­lies for au­top­sies. And the po­lice seem to be con­don­ing this. So no, we need to get this fixed.”

Asked what is the pro­ce­dure of the dis­pos­al of un­claimed bod­ies, Bel­grove said the fu­ner­al agen­cies would have a con­tract from so­cial wel­fare or maybe the hos­pi­tal.

“I am not sure where that con­tract would have orig­i­nat­ed to dis­pose of hu­man re­mains. And they would have arranged with the par­tic­u­lar ceme­tery for that pur­pose... and that is the prop­er pro­ce­dure.”

Bel­grove said the par­tic­u­lar fu­ner­al home, “who­ev­er they are...I am sure they would have had a con­tract to be con­duct­ing le­gal busi­ness based on a con­tract.”

He called on Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar and Rur­al De­vel­op­ment and Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment Min­is­ter Khadi­jah Ameen to move the fu­ner­al home reg­u­la­tions for­ward.

“It’s ur­gent­ly need­ed. I am call­ing on the po­lice. We start­ed dis­cus­sions a year ago. It fell down and noth­ing has fol­lowed. This as­so­ci­a­tion is ready to meet with the po­lice, meet with the Gov­ern­ment, so that we can move prop­er reg­u­la­tions for the in­dus­try for­ward... so we can grow from an in­dus­try to a pro­fes­sion.”

Mean­while, Cu­mu­to/Tamana coun­cil­lor, Keon Sa­roops­ingh, told Guardian Me­dia that the dis­cov­ery of the bod­ies was “in­deed un­for­tu­nate” and he was await­ing the out­come of the po­lice in­ves­ti­ga­tion.

Health Min­is­ter Dr Lack­ram Bo­doe when con­tact­ed on the is­sue said he had tak­en note of the TTPS me­dia re­lease and will await the find­ings of the in­ves­ti­ga­tion.

Ef­forts to get a re­sponse on the mat­ter from So­cial De­vel­op­ment Min­is­ter Van­dana Mo­hit were un­suc­cess­ful.