463 bodies admitted at PMI hospital

BOGOR (JP): The number of bodies admitted to the Bogor PMI Hospital here in 1998 reached 463, a drop of 15 percent from the 548 in 1997, according to the hospital's data.

Out of the 463 bodies, 111 were of victims of various crimes last year, an increase from 91 in 1997.

The other 352 were of victims of traffic accidents, a sharp drop from 457 in 1997, the data showed.

An employee of the hospital said that the victims did not hail only from Bogor, but also other cities, including Cianjur and Sukabumi in West Java.

"The largest number of victims came from the Bogor police precinct," said the employee, who asked not to be named.

Besides treating the victims of killings and traffic accidents, the PMI hospital, the only hospital in Bogor which is assigned to do post-mortem examinations, also received 75 unidentified bodies, including those of 12 babies and three suicide victims as well as the bodies of 88 people whose cause of death was not known.

"Most of the bodies were kept at the hospital morgue for two weeks. If no relatives came forward to claim them, they were buried at the nearby public cemetery," he said.

"Costs of burial reached Rp 70,000 for adults and Rp 50,000 for infants. All of the expenses were borne by the hospital," he said. (24/hhr)