The Glenrowan Investments Funeral Home in Lae is no longer accepting COVID-19 bodies.
Managing director, John Glanville, said they had to make the tough decision after a staff member contracted the virus.
The Glenrowan Investments Funeral Home in Lae is the only death care service provider in the Momase Region.
Started by retired army colonel, Ian Glanville, and his adopted son, John, the family business established a setup in Goroka in 2011, expanded to Lae’s 14-Mile in 2015 and are currently building another facility in Madang.
John Glanville is running the Lae operation and has been working as a funeral director for 27 years.
He said prior to COVID-19, the funeral home receives a minimum of 25 bodies in a week. However, they have noted a drastic increase in the number of deaths after COVID-19 reached the shores of PNG.
“Taim ol luksave olsem COVID em kam nau, na disla em no liklik mo, em dabol ap; dabol ap lo bodies lo kam lo funeral home,” he stated. (When they realised that COVID-19 was here, the number of bodies in the funeral home doubled.)
“Ol COVID body tu mipla ekseptim lo funeral home. (We also accepted COVID-19 bodies in the funeral home.)
“Mi olsem darekta mi lukim olsem, very high risk because wanpla staff blo mi positive lo COVID na mi aisoleitim em. (As the director, I saw that this was very risky as one of my staff tested positive so I isolated him.)
“Mi spray down lo whole area nau mi tok olsem, nogat. Mi pasim tok go daun mi tok, Goroka noken ekseptim COVID body na mipla tu lo Lae mipla nonap ekseptim.” (After spraying down the whole area, I said, no. I instructed Goroka against accepting COVID bodies because we won’t be accepting them here in Lae as well.)
Glanville said this does not mean that they will no longer assist grieving families; they will still provide coffins and take care of the bodies.
This new policy came into effect on Monday the 11th of October.
Glanville lamented that he had lost colleagues, peers and family members to the virus, which in turn added more pressure on him as demand increased.
“Three weeks ago mi stat ofim foun blo mi bikos femli ol save lo mi, wok lo ringim mi, ‘Mr Glanville, mipla kisim bodi kam but Goroka pas ya, mipla kisim bodi kam but Lae pas ya’. (Three weeks ago I started switching off my phone because families that knew me kept calling, saying, ‘Mr Glanville, we took our body to Goroka but it was closed. We brought it to Lae but it was closed as well.)
“Ol ringim mi na mi tok ‘Well, yupla kam na em pas den em pas nau. But mipla bai stap lo halpim yupla.’” (They called me and I said, ‘Well, if it’s closed then it’s closed. But we are here to help you’.)
The funeral home started receiving COVID-19 bodies in 2020. Glanville said after dropping the bodies off, family members would take a while to pick them up again.
He had to advise them to quickly collect the bodies to make space available for others, stressing that they have to be fair to everyone.
“But i go nau mi lukim olsem, nogat, em risky liklik. So mi tok oh nogat, em steit bodi ya, karim go gavman lukautim na mi halpim ol lo kofin.” (But now I see that it’s risky. That’s why I said oh no, that is state body so take it to the government while I will assist with coffins.)
(The Glenrowan Investments Funeral Home at 14-Mile, Morobe Province)