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Jakarta Post

Batam hospital calls on family of Briton to collect his body

Fadli (The Jakarta Post)
Batam
Wed, May 18, 2016

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Batam hospital calls on family of Briton to collect his body Abandoned – This picture shows the passport of Scott Roddie, 52, a UK citizen whose body is being held in the morgue of the Batam Authority Hospital. (thejakartapost.com/Fadli)

T

he Batam Authority (BPK) Hospital has urged the family of UK citizen Scott Roddie, 52, to pick up his body, which has been held in the morgue of the hospital for more than three months.

The hospital’s management is worried about the condition of the body if it is kept too long in the morgue.

The Awal Bros Hospital, Batam, sent the body of the British man, who died of natural causes, to the BPK Hospital on Feb.10. 

Head of the BPK Hospital’s morgue Rian Narulita told thejakartapost.com that it was the Batam, Rempang and Galang (Barelang) Police’s intelligence division and the Awal Bros Hospital that had entrusted Roddie’s body to her hospital.

“We keep calling on the police and Interpol to provide certainty [on when the body will be picked up] because it has been here too long,” said Rian.

She further said that based on standard operating procedures, a dead body could be kept in cold storage for three months at maximum. The storage can last longer, up to six months, if the cold storage facility’s door is kept closed. However, the cold-storage facility in which Roddie’s body is being kept has been opened several times so there is no guarantee that its condition will not deteriorate within the next three months.

“We don’t know what the problem is, neither his family nor the UK Embassy in Jakarta have yet picked up the body. We are really worried about the condition of the body,” said Rian.

She further explained that the cost of storing Roddie’s body amounted to Rp 20 million (around US$ 1,500).

“We want the body to be immediately picked up because BPK Hospital has only eight corpse cold-storage facilities. It is the only hospital in Riau Islands that has a corpse cold-storage facility,” said Rian.

BPK Hospital spokesperson Wawan Setiawan said Roddie died when he was undergoing medical treatment at Awal Bros Hospital. The hospital later sent the body of the expatriate, who worked for a shipyard company in Batam, to the BPK Hospital as his family members had yet to pick it up.

“We treated it differently because he’s a foreigner. According to our existing procedures, we bury a body if no family member picks it up within a month. But this is for Indonesians. The problem is, the UK Embassy has not yet given any helpful information for us to decide [what to do with the body],” said Wawan.

A source who wished to remain anonymous said the police were facing difficulties in tracing the whereabouts of Roddie’s family in the UK. It was reported that the deceased was estranged from his family. Meanwhile, the UK Embassy has provided little assistance to the Indonesian authorities in resolving the problem. (ebf)

 

 

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