Mortuary assistant performs thankless job from the heart

Mortuary assistant performs thankless job from the heart

By Multa Firdaus

JAKARTA (JP): The stench of the rotten corpse was unbearable,
but Sofah calmly leaned over the body and cleaned it. The dead
was not a member of her family, nor her best friend. She did not
even know who the dead was but she handled the body with care.

Bathing corpses and preparing them for burial is her job. Not
just the corpses of those who die of illness or old age, but the
bodies of people who die an unnatural death -- whether they are
slashed by a machete, hit by a car, attacked by mobs, burned in a
fire or commit suicide.

Sofah, 27, works in the Cipto Mangunkusumo General Hospital
(RSCM) morgue in Central Jakarta, where she has to breath
unpleasant and unhealthy odors while facing loathsome sights.

RSCM morgue receives an average of three corpses every day.
Some of them have begun to decay and emit an offensive odor by
the time they arrive at the morgue.

Many corpses are unidentified and no one comes to collect
them. In that case, they are buried in a mass grave at Tegal Alur
graveyard in Cengkareng, West Jakarta.

Before a corpse is buried -- or taken home by the dead's
relatives -- there are many things which must be done by the
staff at the mortuary. They have to do a variety of tasks,
ranging from preparing the coffins, shrouds, flowers, fragrant
oils, bathing and wrapping the corpses, as well as saying prayers
for the dead.

Sofah is one of two employees who are responsible for bathing
female corpses.

Sofah, a Tsanawiyah (Islamic junior high school) graduate from
Kuningan, West Java said that she accepted the job offered by her
uncle who also works at the morgue because she, as the eldest of
eight children, wanted to lighten her parents' financial burden.

"Of course I want better job, but I don't have any other
choice," she told The Jakarta Post at the morgue.

She said that she had been jobless for three years since she
gave up working at several garment factories in the capital.

An impression forever imprinted in her memory was when Sofah
first started the job five years ago.

The first corpse she handled was the body of a 50-year-old
woman who had died of cancer of the breast.

"There were many holes in the body which had also began to
rot. As I sprayed water the body with water, the flesh around the
holes disintegrated, causing gaping holes," she said.

The second corpse she bathed was even worse because it had
been found five days after death. She said she could not eat for
several days since she felt queasy and overshadowed by the dead
women's faces.

"My first and second week at the morgue was really hard for
me. I felt horrible seeing the bodies, but I could not vomit
despite feeling nauseated," she said.

She began to adjust after she entered the third week at the
morgue.

Sofah's working hours are from 7 a.m. to 3 p.m., but she has
to be ready to return to the morgue if there are corpses that
have to be bathed after she gets home.

Despite her hard work, her monthly salary is less than half
the minimum wage stipulated by the government. In addition, she
receives Rp 10,000 as a daily transportation allowance.

The minimum wage for greater Jakarta is Rp 426,250 a month.

Yet, Sofah never complains, saying that she regards the job as
an act of charity.

"At least, I can help the mourning family, or the dead who
have no one to arrange their funeral. I am happy enough, I treat
the corpse wholeheartedly like a living human being," she said.

Sofah said what disappointed her was that most people who come
to pick up the corpses were reluctant to give a hand when she
bathes the corpse. However, she sometimes receives tips from
family members of the dead who appreciate her job. Such tips add
to her income significantly, in fact. The highest tip she ever
received was Rp 100,000.

Sofah is also frequently annoyed by family members of the dead
who insist that things required to treat the corpses such as
flowers, perfumes, soaps, shrouds and coffins should be prepared
by the morgue staff, while actually those things must be provided
by the families themselves.

The thin woman said there was no fixed number of corpses that
she had to bathe daily. "Once I had to bathe five corpses in a
day, but on another day there was no corpse at all to bathe," she
said.

Sofah, who married two years ago, said her husband had no
objection to her job so far.

"I keep working in order to help augment my husband's earnings
because he only runs a small warung (stall) at our home in Gunung
Sahari subdistrict in Central Jakarta," she added.

She has yet to make a decision on whether she will keep
working if she has a baby later. After all, she has not yet been
appointed as a permanent member of staff at the hospital despite
her five-year term of service at the morgue.