The odyssey that residents live in the city of Santiago de Cuba with the funeral services It was denounced by a Cuban, who assured on social networks that “even to die we have to work.”
“It is not enough that the life of a Cuban is the most suffered, difficult and unfair in the entire world, I am not going to talk about that. Today I will tell you about the odyssey that you have to go through if a family member dies, at least in Santiago de Cuba,” he said Thursday in the profile of Facebook from the group “Revolico Santiago de Cuba”, the user Yamilka González.
Among the vicissitudes that happen, he mentioned that “the box is made of cardboard, very fragile, without glass. They give you a dirty glass that they rotate without washing from dead to dead and they make it opaque and dirty.
He also noted that “the funeral home is full of flies, they don’t put on the air conditioning to save money and that there is” heat and tremendous stench in those rotten bathrooms.
Likewise, he said that “the man from Santiago lost the right to be buried in Santa Ifigenia, after they placed the stone. They send you to Caney, Juan González, Icaco, and a lot of places in order to force you out ”.
In addition, he said, “you have to save enough money for that moment when a family member dies. Example, in order for them to find you a place in Santa Ifigenia you must pay 4,000 pesos to the corrupt funeral home. Death is a bargain.”
Neither, he commented, “there is a taxi service. Not even one. So imagine you must go out and rent a machine on the street for at least 3,000 pesos only up to the cemetery for three people. Not everyone has these 7,000 if you add up”.
“That is, we do not have the right to die. I don’t want to say that they drop like flies due to the lack of medicines and the lousy diet. I’ll leave it there, imagine the pain and so on, ”González concludes in his publication.
Last May, it also emerged that families from Santiago were facing unfortunate and unpleasant situations with funeral services, in the midst of the scarcity of resources in Cuba.
José Borrero Sotomayor, provincial director of Community Services in Santiago de Cuba, acknowledged the crisis, but assured that they were working to guarantee services.
He admitted on that occasion that the crematorium of the province it was still not working, due to technical problemsbut it was expected to start operating in June with the support of the Integral Automation Company.
Another problem that worried the population was the availability and quality of the funeral boxes, and according to Borrero, the factory in charge of producing the sarcophagi had the necessary materials and daily manufactured about 30 coffins.
However, he acknowledged that a few months ago they ran out of wood and were forced to take steps to continue manufacturing.
Borrero mentioned that they did not have enough capacity to undertake the burials and for this they were creating new niches in the Santiago cemetery.
Regarding the hearses, he said, there was a shortage of parts and pieces for their correct operation, and to face the problem contracted the service of private companies.
The official also denied the privatization of obituary services and assured that they continue to be subsidized by the State.
“Funeral services continue to be subsidized by the State. What is regulated by Resolution is charged: interprovincial transfers have a price of $4.00 per kilometer traveled, cremation 340.00, exhumation 156.00 and floral arrangements -wreaths and bouquets- according to the mourner’s request,” said the official.
In March it also transpired that Santiago de Cuba only has 10 hearses for the entire provincesix less than there were a year ago.
With a third of its motor park, the state company of Communal Services must offer obituary services to more than a million inhabitants, half of them residing in the main city.
In Santiago de Cuba, there are also problems with burials and the capacity of the cemeteries, which often causes displeasure in families that do not own vaults.
One of the drawbacks is that they cannot do the burial where they want, because it depends on the capacity of the necropolis.
On that same date, the Santiago activist Yosmany Mayeta Labrada denounced that a relative was veiled at home because the hearse never arrivedin addition to the uncertainty of when it would be taken to the cemetery.
“If you don’t have a hearse, put your car, which is the ‘people’s car,’ so that the coffins, and in this case, that of the deceased Carlos Bicet, can be buried in the Santa Ifigenia cemetery,” the young man wrote on Facebook.
