Broken fridges leave morgue at reduced capacity
By Ivy Susanti
JAKARTA (JP): Normally able to accommodate 28 bodies, the morgue at the Cipto Mangunkusumo General Hospital, the only hospital authorized to do postmortem examinations in the capital, is currently operating at only about one third its capacity, an official said on Thursday.
Mardiyono, chief of the morgue, said that only 10 of the 28 refrigeration units used to preserve corpses before they are examined were functioning.
"As a result, we are forced to lay the bodies sent here, anywhere around the morgue," he told The Jakarta Post.
A good refrigeration system is vital to a morgue. It enables the morgue to store the bodies, and prevents decomposition before the postmortem examinations, or before the bodies are collected by the families of the deceased.
Mardiyono said that without the refrigeration systems the corpses would quickly decompose.
Unfortunately, the 10 refrigeration units at the morgue that are still functioning, are not able to bring the temperature down to freezing, as could be seen by the thermometers, which registered temperatures between 10 and 20 degrees Celsius.
"A well-operating unit would produce frost, so cold that if we opened the retractable shelves, the water vapor would spray outside. It could preserve a corpse for one month," said Mardiyono.
Due to the poor condition of the refrigeration system, he called on the public to help finance the refrigeration system maintenance.
"Please help us. The refrigeration system is badly needed here. You could contribute either the new units or new machines," he said, adding that he made the plea as the government was short of money, and unable to set aside funds for the procurement of the new units.
Mardiyono, who has worked at the morgue since 1976, said that the existing refrigeration units were installed in either 1978, 1985 or 1992 to replace the old ones.
He said that the old units had been in operation since the construction of the hospital during the Dutch occupation.
In the 1970s Prof. Dr. Rukmono, then chief of pathology in the anatomy department of the University of Indonesia's School of Medicine, made some physical improvements to the morgue by building a waiting room for the families of the deceased, a room to bathe the dead bodies and a chamber for burial ceremonies, in addition to installing the new refrigeration units.
Rukmono also ruled that corpses which had already had a postmortem examination, should be removed within 48 hours.
Mardiyono said, however, that unidentified bodies were usually kept until they were claimed by their families.
"Sometimes unidentified bodies take quite a long time to be identified. We usually keep the bodies in the morgue for a maximum of four days," he said.
The unclaimed bodies are usually buried at Pondok Rangoon public cemetery in East Jakarta, he said.
He recalled that the three corpses found in the Thousand Islands in early August were kept in the morgue for about four months.
The remains were originally believed to be the bodies of some of the 14 political activists who were kidnapped, and were still missing.
But relatives of the activists failed to identify any of the remains.
Mardiyono also said that hundreds of corpses from the May riots, which were found in burned department stores and other buildings across the city, were not stored in the refrigeration units, because the number of bodies far exceeded the units' capacity.
He said that the morgue does not charge any money for the refrigeration service.
"We only charge for the equipment used in the burial ceremony, such as the fee for bathing and wrapping the dead bodies, as we have to buy these items," he added.