The Lagos State
Government has said there is no law or policy in place that forbids the release
of the bodies of patients who died of COVID-19 to their families for burial.
The Lagos State
Commissioner for Health, Prof Akin Abayomi, said this while addressing a press
conference on Sunday.
A reporter, making
veiled reference to President Muhammadu Buhari’s Chief of Staff, Abba Kyari,
had asked why the state government released the body and allowed it to be taken
to Abuja for burial.
The reporter, while
asking his question, recalled that the Minister for Information, Lai Mohammed,
once said families of dead Coronavirus patients will not be allowed to claim
their corpses, wondering why it was not the same with the late Abba Kyari.
In his reaction, the
Lagos State Health Commissioner said: “There is no policy against the release
of the deceased with COVID-19 to the family for burial.
“It depends on many
conditions. There’s a protocol to manage every scenario. The protocol to manage
death from COVID-19 is that the body will be decontaminated; the body is then
placed in a special body bag.
“We put them in two
body bags and then placed within a coffin and the coffin is sealed. The family
will then be given the opportunity to come and collect the body and taken for
burial. Restriction around the burial must follow the current law on
congregations and no more than 25 people, in total, including the religious
members of the ceremony and the gravediggers; they should not exceed 25.
“Family can then
carry out the private burial ceremony.“Once we’ve conducted the proper protocol
for decontaminating the body and ensuring the body is put in body bags, and
then put in a coffin.
“There’s no current
policy that bars us from handing over bodies of the deceased to their family
members; just that it must be done in a way that does not expose family members
or that doesn’t breach the law on the numbers of people that should be
aggregated in one place.”
Recall that Abba
Kyari was buried yesterday with more than 25 persons in attendance, at the Gudu
Cemetery in Abuja.
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