tHE "Beyond Ubuntu" bad service received from B3

On 05 March 2019, we lost our loved one, the late baby Lehlogonolo Kgotso Semela through negligence from Tshepo Themba Hospital. We trusted the B3 funeral services as alleged being professionals and appointed them to store the little body and a mandate to handle the funeral arrangements and services for us at the Naledi branch. All the monies were paid on time and funeral / burial arrangements were made with the Naledi branch for Saturday 09 March 2019, 09am at Slovo Cemetery. We were requested to pay the adult amount for the grave and agreed, however, we requested the child to be laid to rest with other kids and not with adults.

B3 staff agreed and confirmed with the parents on Wednesday 06 March 2019 that they will arrange to lay the little one with others. To our supprice, on the day of the funeral at approximately 08h30 we received a call from one of your Manager, Seipati, informing us that there was a miscommunication between them and Slovo Cemetery as they have diged the grave for the late Kgotso at the adult side. I really had no idea what was expected from us by B3 employees at that time. We re**** and trusted B3 as we were mourning the death of our child. That call really frustrated us because she (Seipati) suggested that we send some family members to the graveyard immediately to instruct the Slovo people to dig another grave.

My uncles never had the opportunity to attend their grandchild’s funeral service as they had to attend to that. Seipati failed to go to the grave yard to make sure that we get the service that we paid, deserve and promised to us. She opted to remain in her office and for us to resolve their miscommunication with the Slovo people. At 09am the he**** came to fetch the child at home to be laid to his final rest at the cemetery. The two employees from B3 did not say anything about the grave. Apparently Slovo instructed the two guys to dig the grave at around 08h30. Those two boys tried their outmost best as they said but clearly it was not enough because they were only using shovels and started to dig late. I can confirm that there was no grave there but a small hole as if we were burying a dog. We as the family did not witness that and none of the B3 employees who were there failed to informed us of that. We trusted B3, hence there we felt no need for inspection.

We proceeded with the burial and we were later informed by friends that actually there was no grave at all. I am still saying B3 buried our child like a dog, with no respect and dignity. On Monday 11 March 2019, we proceeded to the B3 Naledi branch to lay a complain. We were assisted by Seipati as mentioned above. Management was aware of the incident but did not bother to make a follow up call to address the issue to us. So clearly our child was never going to rest at peace if we did not attend to that. At first, Seipati did not want to take responsibility or account as the service provider and she wanted to move the blame to the Slovo cemetery, forgetting that we are not Slovo clients but for B3. We did not make any arrangements or payments with Slovo people, however, with B3 as our service provider with trust.

She made some calls to Slovo and we were requested to make some affidavits to give them permission to perform the exhumation process. We agreed to that as we wanted our beloved one to rest in peace. Seipati was given a copy within an hour of her request. She promised to call us to confirm the day. On Tuesday she kept her promise and the arrangements were made for us to meet at the Slovo grave side on Thursday, 14 March 2019.

On 14 March 2019, we all met at the baby’s grave. Seipati came through with one of her male colleague. To my supprice, there were no people arranged to assist in removing the casket and putting it back. The father of the child had to assist to doing that. That was really traumatising and painful I must say. There was an old man driving the tractor who also came to assist. We had to pay him money for his assistance. Manpower issue was questioned with Seipati and she mentioned that she thought the Slovo people were going to arrange that as it was their fault. I had to go personally to request two gentlemen around to assist as that was taking forever. No proper arrangements were made again by B3.

We had to inhale the smell as no masks and gloves were provided to us. When asked about that, Seipati mentioned that she forgot them as they were in a hurry to come through. I believe that is not healthy for our health at all. We had to consult our doctors after that and which we again used our money for consultation. Seipati mentioned that she will arrange their doctor to examine their employee and never bothered about us. I failed to understand what services did we have to pay for if we had to do that ourselves. We as the family are angry and disappointed with the bad service received from B3 when burying our loved one. What B3 did was not human at all. To consider that we as blacks have tradition and culture that needs to be respected and honoured by our service provider. However, B3 failed to consider that.

We actually did the re- burial ourselves and that was painful and we feel that B3 failed us and again that it really violated the grave and the dead body’s rights. We finally laid our son to rest ourselves.

We felt we needed to raise this first with Management before taking any further steps. However, till to date we have not yet received an apology from Management of B3.