SHAL­IZA HAS­SANALI

Se­nior In­ves­tiga­tive Re­porter

shal­iza.has­sanali@guardian.co.tt

Just out­side the mor­tu­ary doors of the Er­ic Williams Med­ical Sci­ences Com­plex (EWM­SC) in Mt Hope, a turf war is brew­ing among fu­ner­al home touts.

They’re not on­ly com­pet­ing fierce­ly to sway griev­ing fam­i­lies in choos­ing a bur­ial or cre­ma­tion ser­vice, but they are al­so bat­tling to of­fer the most com­pet­i­tive prices.

In their bid to out­do each oth­er, these touts, work­ing for nu­mer­ous fu­ner­al homes, have been op­er­at­ing in pub­lic mor­tu­ary com­pounds with­out any State in­ter­fer­ence.

Even in­side the EWM­SC com­pound, they open­ly con­duct their busi­ness right next to a se­cu­ri­ty of­fi­cer sta­tioned in a guard booth, with­out be­ing re­moved.

It’s a prob­lem, pres­i­dent of the As­so­ci­a­tion of Fu­ner­al Pro­fes­sion­als of Trinidad and To­ba­go Kei­th Bel­grove, Lui­gi Jod­han, op­er­a­tions di­rec­tor of Clark and Bat­too Ltd, and Is­rael Arm­strong, fu­ner­al di­rec­tor of Arm­strong in Ari­ma Ltd, told Guardian Me­dia In­ves­ti­ga­tions Desk, that needs to be stopped.

The touts were one of the is­sues Bel­grove raised fol­low­ing last week’s grim dis­cov­ery of 56 un­claimed bod­ies be­ing un­law­ful­ly dis­posed of at the Cu­mu­to Ceme­tery, which led po­lice to ar­rest two men claim­ing to be work­ers of a fu­ner­al home.

Among the corpses were 50 in­fants.

The mat­ter re­mains un­der in­ves­ti­ga­tion by the po­lice.

“Let’s stay with the prob­lem that just oc­curred. So a par­tic­u­lar fu­ner­al home has a prop­er con­tract to work with the RHAs (Re­gion­al Health Au­thor­i­ties). And the hu­man re­mains, de­ceased per­sons, were is­sued to the fu­ner­al home in a prop­er man­ner, I will an­tic­i­pate.”

Bel­grove, the chief ex­ec­u­tive of­fi­cer of Bel­groves Fu­ner­al Home, said the home’s first step af­ter col­lect­ing the bod­ies from the mor­tu­ar­ies was to con­tact the ceme­tery keep­er and arrange the graves.

The Ceme­ter­ies Act al­lows two bod­ies in sep­a­rate coffins to be buried in a sin­gle grave.

The bod­ies must be buried at dif­fer­ent depths, one at six feet, the oth­er at nine.

“But when we in­ter­viewed that par­tic­u­lar fu­ner­al home, they ad­vised us that they have not been paid since 2021. So they were re­al­ly do­ing a pub­lic ser­vice.”

He said the fu­ner­al home, which has been pro­vid­ing bur­ial ser­vices for the RHAs, claimed that over $2 mil­lion is owed to them by the State.

Bel­grove said oth­er homes are al­so owed an es­ti­mat­ed $15 mil­lion for ser­vices pro­vid­ed dur­ing the pan­dem­ic and be­yond.

Giv­en this in­ci­dent, Bel­grove said he felt sor­ry for the home, which is be­ing in­ves­ti­gat­ed.

“It’s a sad sit­u­a­tion for the fu­ner­al home in­volved. We feel for them. But we can’t con­done what has hap­pened.”

He said the un­claimed bod­ies are giv­en a pau­per’s bur­ial at the State’s ex­pense.

A pau­per’s bur­ial for an in­fant or child is $2,000. Adults cost $3,000.

“They large­ly fo­cus on these con­tracts for their ex­is­tence. So one of the things they said to me is that the fees they re­ceive do not let them cov­er the costs. And it’s very dif­fi­cult for them to ne­go­ti­ate any in­crease. No­body pays them any at­ten­tion when they try to get the fees.”

Bel­grove said un­der the Bur­ial Grounds Act Chap­ter 30:50, the fu­ner­al home could face a min­i­mal fine for breach­ing the law.

Sub­clause 16 of the Act states that any per­son who opens a grave with­out per­mis­sion from the CEO or Keep­er, or who, hav­ing ob­tained such per­mis­sion, ne­glects or re­fus­es to pay the fees above spec­i­fied, is guilty of an in­fringe­ment of these reg­u­la­tions and li­able to a fine not ex­ceed­ing $75.

The fee to open a grave for an adult is $5, while each child un­der age 12 is $2.

Jod­han said the bod­ies were not buried, so the fu­ner­al home did not breach the Act.

Growth of fu­ner­al homes

Be­fore COVID-19, there were 67 fu­ner­al agen­cies in T&T.

That fig­ure has reached 110 and count­ing.

“Every week the num­ber in­creas­es,” said Jod­han.

“There are peo­ple who go by the mor­tu­ary and say they can bury a body for you and call a price. We call them suit­case traders.”

Jod­han said most of these suit­case traders op­er­ate with­out a fa­cil­i­ty, equip­ment or stan­dards.

“When a body is not sent off in a dig­ni­fied man­ner, the fam­i­lies go through grief ten­fold.

“What they see or get for their loved one is not what they want­ed or paid for.”

These suit­case traders fool fam­i­lies in­to be­liev­ing they can do the bur­ial for the low­est price.

Bel­grove said some of these fly-by-night fu­ner­al homes would quote one price at the hos­pi­tal, and once they take pos­ses­sion of the body, the prices go up.

“Peo­ple ex­pe­ri­ence that at all our pub­lic mor­tu­ar­ies every sin­gle day,” Bel­grove ad­mit­ted.

“We call it bait and switch,” Jod­han said.

Bel­grove said these prices are com­pa­ra­ble to those of an es­tab­lished fu­ner­al home.

At a rep­utable fu­ner­al home, a sim­ple fu­ner­al could cost be­tween $7,500 and $10,000.

A stan­dard fu­ner­al is about $20,000.

Fam­i­lies who want ex­pen­sive fu­ner­als would pur­chase im­port­ed or lo­cal­ly made hard­wood cas­kets.

“They may al­so want to rent one of your high-end ve­hi­cles, hire out­side cater­ers, have dec­o­ra­tive stream­ers or pur­chase a grave.”

Jod­han claimed the re­frig­er­a­tion ser­vice at the EWM­SC was sab­o­taged sev­er­al times, so bod­ies had to be housed at fu­ner­al homes at a cost.

In some cas­es, Arm­strong said some of these homes had poor re­frig­er­a­tion and in­ad­e­quate spac­ing, lead­ing to the bod­ies de­cay­ing on their hands.

“So that as­pect is some of the dirty linens of fu­ner­al ser­vice,” Bel­grove point­ed out.

He said fu­ner­al homes with no ex­pe­ri­ence would be giv­en clear­ance by the po­lice to re­move bod­ies from a crime scene or home.

“So when the po­lice al­low fu­ner­al homes to get ap­proval for do­ing these foren­sic runs on their be­half, they don’t go out to do the due dili­gence to make sure they have the prop­er equip­ment, re­frig­er­a­tion fa­cil­i­ties and rules for op­er­at­ing.”

Bel­grove ac­cused the po­lice of col­lud­ing with se­lect­ed fu­ner­al homes to pick up bod­ies out­side of their col­lec­tion cy­cle.

Arm­strong said he was on call to pick up the 56 bod­ies in Cu­mu­to af­ter the dis­cov­ery was made, but an­oth­er fu­ner­al home was giv­en the job.

He al­leged that one fu­ner­al home was stor­ing bod­ies in a home re­frig­er­a­tor.

Bel­grove said he knows of a home op­er­at­ing in a garage, which is a pub­lic health risk.

“Where is the af­flu­ent go­ing? How are they treat­ing these bod­ies? The so­lu­tion is reg­u­la­tions and en­forc­ing stan­dards.”

He said it’s not about shut­ting down non-com­pli­ant homes but get­ting them to con­form to what is right.

“The com­plaints have been com­ing to us fast and fu­ri­ous.”

Jod­han said there were no puni­tive mea­sures to hold peo­ple ac­count­able, stat­ing that the as­so­ci­a­tion has be­come a tooth­less bull­dog.

“The door is wide open for any­thing to hap­pen.”

Since 1999, Bel­grove said, the as­so­ci­a­tion has been call­ing on suc­ces­sive gov­ern­ments to reg­u­late the fu­ner­al in­dus­try by im­ple­ment­ing laws and im­pos­ing fines and penal­ties on wrong­do­ers.

Un­der the last ad­min­is­tra­tion, a com­pre­hen­sive pol­i­cy pa­per was draft­ed.

At the height of the pan­dem­ic in 2021, he said, a video had cir­cu­lat­ed on so­cial me­dia of fu­ner­al home work­ers dump­ing bod­ies in a sin­gle grave in the Cara­po Ceme­tery.

He said there were prob­a­bly oth­er in­stances of un­claimed bod­ies be­ing buried that were nev­er made pub­lic.

On Tues­day, the Gov­ern­ment promised to bring leg­is­la­tion to Par­lia­ment to pre­vent any re­cur­rence of un­law­ful dis­pos­al of un­claimed bod­ies.

Last week, Bel­grove wrote Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar and Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment Min­is­ter Khadi­jah Ameen to reg­u­late the in­dus­try.

“We re­al­ly feel this Gov­ern­ment can make the change,” Bel­grove said.

On Wednes­day, Guardian Me­dia In­ves­ti­ga­tions Desk sent sev­er­al ques­tions to North Cen­tral Re­gion­al Health Au­thor­i­ty chair­man Dr Tim Gopeesingh re­gard­ing the touts at EWM­SC, which he read but did not re­spond.

Fu­ner­al touts

Last Wednes­day, Guardian Me­dia In­ves­ti­ga­tions Desk vis­it­ed the De­part­ment of Anatom­i­cal Pathol­o­gy at the EWM­SC to get a first-hand view of the touts’ op­er­a­tions. Our team mem­ber pro­posed that they were try­ing to query the bur­ial cost for a 92-year-old rel­a­tive whose body was in the hos­pi­tal’s mor­tu­ary. The re­quest made was for the low­est cost for a Hin­du bur­ial, as the de­ceased from Ed­in­burgh 500 had no NIS ben­e­fits or col­lect­ed a Se­nior Cit­i­zens’ pen­sion.

Con­tin­ues on page 9

One tout from a Ch­agua­nas-based fu­ner­al agency said they would charge $8,000, which in­clud­ed dig­ging the grave, trans­port, body prepa­ra­tion, a tent and ob­tain­ing a pun­dit for the in­ter­ment.

He said the price of a cre­ma­tion was $6,500, but if fi­nances were a prob­lem, they would ac­cept $5,500.

When Guardian Me­dia In­ves­ti­ga­tions Desk em­pha­sised the need for the low­est cost, the tout sug­gest­ed ap­ply­ing for a $7,000 fu­ner­al grant from the Min­istry of So­cial De­vel­op­ment.

This grant as­sists with the fu­ner­al for a de­ceased per­son who has no one fi­nan­cial­ly able to un­der­take the cost of bur­ial.

Guardian Me­dia In­ves­ti­ga­tions Desk was then ap­proached by a fe­male tout from a Cou­va-based fu­ner­al agency who said the cheap­est bur­ial would be be­tween $8,000 and $8,500. That fee, she said, in­clud­ed use of their chapel, dig­ging of the grave, a wreath, se­cur­ing a spot in the ceme­tery, a cof­fin, prepa­ra­tion of the body, trans­port, cov­er­ing the grave and re­frig­er­a­tion stor­age.

She said most fu­ner­al homes would charge $7,500, but the price would in­crease to $8,500 due to ad­di­tion­al fees.

“You have to be care­ful when you say cheap­est be­cause when you tell peo­ple like my­self cheap­est here, they will tell you $6,500, and it’s still com­ing back to $8,500. They would tell you a cheap­er price, and when you go in there, they will charge you more. I know what I telling you. Any­body tell you it is less than that…that is a lie.”

The woman boast­ed that she has been in­volved in the in­dus­try for over 25 years.

“I am telling you the facts, al­though we’re look­ing for busi­ness. Be mind­ful. Trust me on that, I would not put you on no scheme,” she as­sured.

She was joined by a male tout whom she de­scribed as one of their boss­es.

He said a ba­sic bur­ial could start at $7,500.

“All the fam­i­ly would have to pro­vide to the home was the death cer­tifi­cate and the de­ceased’s clothes.”

If the fam­i­ly re­quests a priest, a $500 fee would be added.

The cost would in­crease if the fu­ner­al had to be streamed live.

“Or if you chose a dif­fer­ent box, the price would be more. Them oth­er fu­ner­al homes will charge you $14 and $15,000 for the same box. Let me tell you what will hap­pen here, ma’am. Every­body will tell you a price. And when you go there (of­fice)…you get catch. You have to pay $15 and $20,000. What are you go­ing to do? I know our price will stand,” he said, hand­ing me two call cards of the fu­ner­al home where he worked.

He as­sured there were no gim­micks and hid­den charges.

“One ad­van­tage of our fu­ner­al home is that we build cas­kets.”

With­in sec­onds of that in­ter­ac­tion, the team mem­ber was sur­round­ed by three touts, two of whom were fe­males, as they each boast­ed that their prices and ser­vice were the best.

This led to an ar­gu­ment and a price war among them.

“Hi, I am from a dif­fer­ent fu­ner­al home, and I think you are look­ing for a good price. I have a fu­ner­al home that will as­sist you at the best price of $5,000. Are you in­ter­est­ed?” one of the fe­male touts asked.

“We will do every­thing for you, every­thing!” she in­sist­ed.

She en­cour­aged Guardian Me­dia In­ves­ti­ga­tions Desk to talk to the own­er of the Port-of-Spain fu­ner­al home, who was stand­ing un­der a tree a few feet away.

The tout in­sist­ed the own­er would un­der­take all bur­ial arrange­ments at no ad­di­tion­al cost.

“He was once a grave dig­ger and worked in a mor­tu­ary. You have noth­ing to wor­ry about. You will be deal­ing with the own­er and no­body else.”

She said a pay­ment plan can be arranged with the fam­i­ly if they have fi­nan­cial con­straints.

Short­ly af­ter, the own­er shared a card to con­tact him.

Af­ter out­lin­ing what the fu­ner­al home was of­fer­ing for $5,000, she ad­mit­ted to hus­tling for a San Juan fu­ner­al home and quot­ed their bur­ial cost at $7,500, but pro­vid­ed no de­tails of what they were of­fer­ing.

The fight be­came even more com­pet­i­tive when a male tout as­so­ci­at­ed with a Port-of-Spain fu­ner­al home squeezed in and hand­ed over a busi­ness card.

On his phone, he showed me a list of the ser­vices for a $6,500 bur­ial.

The ser­vices in­clud­ed re­moval of hu­man re­mains, re­frig­er­a­tion, em­balm­ing, dig­ging, a unit (cof­fin) and use of a chapel.

An­oth­er fe­male tout as­so­ci­at­ed with an Ari­ma fu­ner­al home said they would charge $6,000.

“No mat­ter how many days it takes to get your things in or­der, it’s still the $6,000. We will treat the body with dig­ni­ty.”