Undertakers feel left out of coronavirus talks

Many Jamaicans panic at the thought of a possible outbreak of coronavirus in the island, and members of the the Jamaica Association of Certified Embalmers and Funeral Directors are equally perturbed.

Following the recent reported cases in the Caribbean, people are more alarmed.

Calvin Lyn, president of the association, told THE STAR that they have been left in the dark.

In the event that they have to prepare the body of someone who dies from the coronavirus, he said that practitioners won't know what precautions to take to safeguard themselves.

"We from the industry are anxiously awaiting some guidance from the Ministry of Health, because we are one of the first set of persons, if and when someone should contract the virus and die, (to touch the body). We want to be told what to do," he said.

Lyn believes that being properly informed would guarantee their protection.

"From the thing (coronavirus) came to our attention, we would have been spraying our properties with Lysol, that can help to eliminate the viruses," he said.

Discussion with the ministry

Hoping to get some semblance of insight, they are planning on engaging in a discussion with the ministry.

"We intend to meet with the Ministry of Health soon to get into that matter. It is said that it (the virus) has a lifespan of whether two, four or six hours, we don't know. Right now, we believe that the Government is trying its best, but because there is no vaccine as yet or cure worldwide, we just have to protect ourselves," he said.

Patrick Williams, vice-president of the association, says they had to proceed with a similar urgency following the Ebola virus epidemic back in 2018.

"We had dialogue with the Ministry of Health at that time, the police, the JDF ... all the main players at that time. We discussed the way forward and had things in place at that time, just in case it (Ebola) got to our shores. Fortunately, it didn't," he said.

Lyn added: "We hope that it would be sooner than later that we are brought into the loop. With Ebola, we had to make preparations to help ourselves, because The Bible says God helps those who help themselves."

Embalmers and funeral directors have always had to protect themselves when dealing with the dead. For example, Lyn says they are more cautious when attending to a deceased who had HIV.

"The body is put in a body bag separately and marked for us to know. So we take extra care. With HIV cases, it's the fluid from the body that carries the germs. So you can embalm a HIV case and protect yourself by not getting any cuts, not making anything splash on us to get through our pores. So we protect ourselves. With the coronavirus, we affi know wah fi do," he said.