Gauteng uses IT to identify the dead

By Leon Engelbrecht, ITWeb senior writer

Johannesburg, 11 Jun 2007

The province's forensic pathology service has received R83.7 million for state-of-the art IT, "to bring these services in line with modern requirements", says Gauteng health MEC Brian Hlongwa. "This includes, among other things, operational costs."

Democratic Alliance provincial health spokesman Jack Bloom says the province took over a number of morgues from the police about a year ago. At the time they were badly in need of modernising.

He says the IT spend is being used to computerise the morgue's database and to set up a Web site that will allow families to identify and claim bodies.

"This may sound ghoulish, but it is a priority and really needed," the DA spokesman says. "In fact, the project is way overdue; it was promised a year ago."

Bloom says Gauteng's morgues have traditionally had a high throughput of unidentified bodies, many of whom were then given paupers' funerals.

"The bodies are unclaimed because they are unidentified," Bloom says.

The Web site will allow relatives to assist authorities to identify the dead, who can then be released to their families for a proper funeral.

"You can imagine the tragedy to people and families when loved ones disappear," he says.