Cost of preserving bodies and burying the dead too dear for many Rwandan families
By Edmund Kagire Rwanda Today
Posted Saturday, July 5 2014 at 10:36
In Summary
Death is turning out to be a very costly affair in Rwanda.
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The rising cost of death-related services mean many Rwandans cannot afford to preserve the bodies of their deceased kin appropriately pending burial.
Some Rwandan families, especially upcountry, say provincial hospitals lack mortuary and embalming services while referral hospitals that have are expensive.
John Ntambara*, 75, a resident of Gatsibo District, died earlier this month from heart and lung complications. His family decided to preserve the body to enable his daughter and his son, who live in South Africa and the UK, respectively, to attend the burial.
For the five days that the body lay at King Faisal Hospital, Kigali, the family accumulated a bill of Rwf800,000 in mortician services, which included a daily embalming injection and mortuary fees.
According to the son, Charles Muneza*, the body could not be moved to Eastern Province because the two hospitals of Ngoma and Nyagatare are in a poor state, so the best option was to keep it in Kigali and move it when it was ready for burial.
Cannot afford
“These charges did not include the funeral service charges or even the hospital bills, which meant the family had to mobilise resources to meet these costs. An ordinary citizen cannot afford these services,”
Mr Muneza said.
KFH-K however says the figure provided above could have been inflated or it includes other medical charges because the cost of a mortician’s services at arguably Rwanda’s biggest referral hospital is “affordable.”
“I don’t think that figure is accurate, unless if it includes hospital bills,” said Praise Asiimwe, the public relations officer of KFH-K.
“If the deceased was a patient at the hospital, the first night in the mortuary is free and the next day it is Rwf20,000.
“The average cost of embalming is Rwf41,000 per daily injection, depending on the state of the body. If it is in a normal state it can go lower than that but even if it is damaged, the injections cannot cost more than that.”
But even then, for an average Rwandan family that cost is not affordable, especially if the process has to be carried on the body for many days.
A mortuary attendant at Kigali Central Teaching Hospital (CHUK) told Rwanda Today on condition of anonymity that the best option for low-income earners is to take the body on the day the person dies for a quick burial to avoid the costs.
“Some families abandon the bodies here due to lack of mortuary fees,”
the mortuary attendant said. “There are people who are brought here without the knowledge of their families, especially those who die in accidents.
“By the time they get to know about the death, the cost of claiming the body is too high for them.”
Earlier this year, Rwanda Today carried a story in which hospitals complained that abandoned bodies in public mortuaries, which were on the increase, were eating into hospital budgets through unplanned burial expenses.
READ: Unclaimed bodies in Kigali pile up amid a high cost of burial
Dr Theobald Hategekimana, the CHUK director-general, said in such cases hospitals are forced to meet burial expenses, which affects their operational budgets.
“We are yet to talk to the government about this, to see whether a sort of subsidy, fund or law governing this matter can be established so as to avoid losses,” he said then.
Body treatment and preservation services are also provided by private companies but the cost is higher.
Languide Nyirababeruka of Twifatanye Funeral Services said embalming depends on the state of the body and that the injection costs between
Rwf20,000 and Rwf40,000 for bodies that are to be buried locally.
The cost of embalming a body to be transported outside Rwanda can go up to $650,000 — for example, when a foreigner dies in Rwanda. This does not include placing the body in a hermetically sealed coffin, which should be done within 24 hours of death.
But even then, embalming services in Rwanda are not of international standards due to lack of the necessary drugs. It is only done by injecting a formalin solution into the body.
An autopsy costs about Rwf100,000.
There is also a shortage of storage facilities, especially at provincial hospitals. The National University Hospital at Butare (CHUB), KFH-K, CHUB and Kanombe Military Hospital can and provide standard cold storage and autopsies. However, all of the hospitals are in the cities.
In recent years, Rwandans have also raised concerns over the cost of burial sites, especially in the popular cemeteries such as Rusororo in Kigali, where charges depend on the social category of the deceased.
The standard fee for a burial spot is Rwf750,000 but a grave in the VIP section ranges from Rwf2.9 million to Rwf5 million. The middle class, which has three subsections, costs between Rwf600,000 and
Rwf200,000 while the ordinary category is Rwf100,000.
READ: Cost of dying too high: MPs want Rususoro fees lowered
The last category, which costs Rwf15,000, is usually reserved for the needy, the homeless and unidentified people.
The cost of a decent coffin ranges from Rwf40,000 and Rwf290,000 but there are some that can go up to Rwf1 million.
(* Names have been changed to protect identities)
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