Rishard Khan

rishard.khan@guardian.co.tt

An av­er­age of 24 COVID-19 deaths are record­ed al­most dai­ly and for the month some 345 peo­ple have died from the virus.

While some fu­ner­al homes and morgues have sound­ed the alarm on dwin­dling space to ac­com­mo­date these bod­ies, the grow­ing in­ci­dence of deaths is al­so be­ing wit­nessed at the Batchyia Pub­lic Ceme­tery, in Pe­nal.

Poorans­ingh Jag­mo­hans­ingh, 62, has lived op­po­site the bur­ial grounds for the last 35 years.

He’s so close, he’s al­most been a part of every fu­ner­al that’s oc­curred there since.

With­in re­cent times he’s been a first-hand wit­ness to the end re­sult of COVID-19 with his kitchen win­dow of­fer­ing a front-row seat to the sec­tion of the ceme­tery used to bury such fa­tal­i­ties. It’s a view he, like oth­er res­i­dents, are now pay­ing the price for.

“With­in re­cent times, for the last month, it get re­al, re­al fright­en­ing now be­cause is every day it have buri­als. First time we ever see so much buri­als in a short space of time and I think it have a psy­cho­log­i­cal ef­fect on the res­i­dents around here now,” he said.

“It had one day it had four and three and look to­day had one (and) yes­ter­day had two and it keep go­ing like that...It have peo­ple liv­ing here way be­fore me- up to 50 and 60 years ago and this is the first time in his­to­ry they ever see so much of bur­ial in a short space of time.”

At the cur­rent rate of buri­als, Jag­mo­hans­ingh be­lieves the sec­tion will be filled with­in a cou­ple of weeks.

Now a re­tired pub­lic ser­vant, he worked at the Pe­nal Debe Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tion (PDRC) for a num­ber of years and one of his tasks was over­see­ing the ceme­tery. He said while it was tra­di­tion­al­ly used to bury those from with­in the com­mu­ni­ty, he’s ob­served peo­ple from as far as Ari­ma com­ing to utilise the site for COVID-19 buri­als.

Dur­ing a vis­it to the ceme­tery yes­ter­day, Guardian Me­dia spoke with a grave dig­ger who wished not to be iden­ti­fied.

He said he was prepar­ing the grave of the 36th COVID-19 fa­tal­i­ty to be laid to rest in the sec­tion. For him it was the sev­enth such hole he was cre­at­ing at the lo­ca­tion– the ma­jor­i­ty of which was made over the past month or so. Since the pan­dem­ic be­gan, he said he dug around 30 graves for COVID-19 fa­tal­i­ties around the coun­try.

“You just call the ceme­ter­ies. From Guyagua­yare come down the road...and even fur­ther,” he said.

But one of his most mem­o­rable works was in the Batchyia Pub­lic Ceme­tery.

“You see them three black cross over there? That’s three fam­i­ly mem­bers- (each name called). COVID, COVID, COVID. This one, then this one then that one,” he said.

A clos­er in­spec­tion of the ceme­tery’s COVID-19 sec­tion re­vealed just how rapid­ly bod­ies were be­ing buried. There were 18 graves whose mounds of dirt had min­i­mal weath­er­ing and flow­ers were rel­a­tive­ly fresh, in­di­cat­ing these were re­cent buri­als. There were some graves be­side each oth­er that ap­peared as though the bod­ies were re­lat­ed and buried on the same day.

He, how­ev­er, lament­ed that this was some­thing he had grown ac­cus­tomed to and was not phased by the deaths.

“It’s an old say­ing but if it is you’re obe­di­ent that does pre­serve your life. It’s a bib­li­cal say­ing. If it is you’re not vac­ci­nat­ed, the safest place is in­doors. The re­sults there. It have peo­ple un­vac­ci­nat­ed but they in­doors and they not con­tract­ing COVID,” he said.

He said that a COVID-19 death is hard on fam­i­lies with all the re­stric­tions and pro­to­cols which pre­vent­ed them from say­ing good­bye to their loved ones in the tra­di­tion­al way.

How­ev­er, for the neigh­bour­ing res­i­dents, their con­cerns have al­so grown be­yond the ca­pac­i­ty of the site and the fre­quen­cy of deaths.

The sec­tion used to bury the COVID-19 bod­ies is a part that is tra­di­tion­al­ly avoid­ed by the com­mu­ni­ty be­cause it’s flood-prone. Now they fear if this will lead to the virus be­ing brought to the sur­face and in­to their homes.

“Let us as­sume it has a flood now and the wa­ter soaks in the grave be­cause re­mem­ber it’s loose dirt. What will hap­pen af­ter? Al­though we know it’s (the cas­ket) is sealed, I think it’s some­thing they should do some re­search on,” Jag­mo­hans­ingh said.

He urged the pub­lic to get vac­ci­nat­ed to avoid be­com­ing his “new neigh­bours.”

Guardian Me­dia reached out to the PDRC for more in­for­ma­tion on the lo­gis­tics of buri­als at the ceme­tery.

How­ev­er, ac­cord­ing to chair­man Dr Allen Sam­my, they were in the dark about COVID-19 buri­als at the site.

He said the cor­po­ra­tion reached out to the Min­istry of Health for guid­ance and with rec­om­men­da­tions on COVID-19 buri­als in its re­gion but nev­er got any re­spons­es. This is why, he said, they had no in­for­ma­tion on how many such bod­ies were buried there or where they were buried. De­spite this, he said fu­ner­al homes used their dis­cre­tion to con­duct the buri­als.

“On­ly cer­tain un­der­tak­ers have ap­proval to bury COVID deaths and yes we are aware that COVID buri­als have tak­en place and we are putting that da­ta to­geth­er be­cause it is gen­er­at­ed prin­ci­pal­ly by the fu­ner­al homes,” he said.

The surg­ing cas­es and re­sult­ing fa­tal­i­ties amidst the coun­try’s third wave has now led to over­flow­ing hos­pi­tal mor­tu­ar­ies and some fu­ner­al homes have al­ready sound­ed the alarm. The sta­tus of the coun­try’s ceme­ter­ies is yet to be de­ter­mined.