Mohd Alif thoroughly checking the documents to ensure there is no mix-up of bodies placed in the mortuary. — AZHAR MAHFOF/The Star
Keep smiling – that’s Mohd Alif Azwan Abdullah’s motto.
“If I don’t, it gets really stressful when you’re dealing with dead bodies, crying families and standing for hours in the autopsy suite during a post-mortem,” says the Universiti Malaya Medical Centre (UMMC) mortuary department manager-cum-assistant medical officer.
Acting as a sort of gatekeeper, Mohd Alif and his team are responsible for bringing a dead body from the hospital wards in a stretcher, accepting bodies brought in by the police, and checking the documentation and identities meticulously.
They then weigh the deceased, tag the body in a few areas, shroud and wheel it into one of the 54 refrigerators at UMMC.
According to the Health Ministry’s standard operating procedures in Malaysian hospitals, all bodies must be shrouded, wrapped in white linen, or placed in a body bag (black bags for police cases) before being placed in a mortuary refrigerator.
This procedure is mandated to ensure cleanliness, prevent the leakage of bodily fluids and maintain hygiene in the cold storage area, as well as to respect the dignity of the deceased.
“We have to ensure the identity is right so that there are no mix-ups when the next of kin comes to claim the body.
“We tie the big toes with a piece of cardboard attached to a string simply because the big toes are easy to tie and tag; we place another tag on the body and maybe hands, and on the refrigerator door.
“If the identity is unknown, the police will provide us a case number to label the body,” explains Mohd Alif.
Whether the corpse is that of a royal, VIP or regular person, it is accorded the same treatment and kept in the same refrigerator.
The refrigerator can accommodate up to 180kg; if a body is any heavier, it is kept outside as the temperature in the area is all standardised between 2°C to 6°C to slow down decomposition.
Those that require a forensic post-mortem are not meddled with until they go into the autopsy suite.
He says: “During the post-mortem, I help wash the bodies during and after the procedure, and suture the incisions once it’s completed.
“Sometimes we can perform two or three post-mortems a day and it can go on until nighttime – no coffee breaks!
“The moment one body is done, we bring the next one in.”
But Mohd Alif isn’t complaining as he enjoys what he does.
After a body is claimed, the refrigerator is washed with fragrant detergent, sanitised and “rested” for a while before the next body goes in.
At UMMC, the mortuary refrigerators have two doors: one for the family members to identify the deceased (head first) and another that leads to the autopsy suite (feet first).
The workflow is easier this way.
Mohd Alif emphasises that he also thoroughly checks the identities of family members before releasing the bodies.
“There have been polygamy cases where one wife collected the body, then the next wife arrived and chaos ensued – I had to call the police.
“To claim the bodies, family members must provide identity cards if they are Malaysians or passport if they are foreigners, and show proof they are related,” he says.
For red identity card holders (permanent residents), they still need to get approval from their respective embassies to retrieve the body, should it be that of a Malaysian or foreign family member.
Unlike before where touts would be hanging around the mortuary to offer their services, family members must now organise their own transportation with undertakers or funeral service companies to convey the body out.
“These touts were disturbing the emotions of the grieving family members so they are not allowed in the mortuary area any more,” says Mohd Alif.
UMMC’s mortuary is usually about 70% full, mostly with police cases.
Body fragments or limbs that are found are labelled and kept in the same refrigerator while the police try to trace the next of kin through their DNA database.
If there are no matches, Mohd Alif calls the relevant religious authorities or non-governmental organisations to bury these body parts at available cemeteries.
It’s all in a day’s work.
