When The COVID-19 Body Relational Personnel Asked For Responsibility For The Hereafter

ILLUSTRATION / TPU specifically for COVID-19 in Rorotan Jakut (PHOTO VIA Instagram aniesbaswedan)

JAKARTA - During his time as a COVID-19 curator, Achmad Mustofa admitted that he had anxiety when dealing with the public.

Mostofa said that he was once told to be responsible for the world and the hereafter by the family of a corpse with COVID-19 who was going to carry out the restoration.

"Yesterday in RW05, yes, we were told to be responsible for the world and the hereafter," said Mustofa when met by reporters in Sunter Agung Village, Tanjung Priok, North Jakarta, quoted by Antara, Wednesday, July 21.

Mostofa said the family of the corpse did not want to know about the procedures for handling COVID-19 bodies, when a family member died while undergoing self-isolation.

"We were told to be responsible for the afterlife if the process of the corpse was not in accordance with Islamic principles," said Mustofa.

The family of the corpse with COVID-19 wants the officers to carry out the process of bathing the corpse, even though the standard operating procedure for handling corpses issued by the Indonesian Ulema Council is enough to do tayamum.

According to his family, the body was in the puerperium at that time because it had miscarried. So it is necessary to perform a body bath as regulated in Islamic law.

Mostofa also explained to the family that at that time the corpse custodians could only follow the procedures set out in the procedure for handling the bodies of people with COVID-19, namely performing tayammum.

"What we can (help) is tayammum. Previously, we had invited the family if they really wanted to wash the body, we would use Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) but they didn't want to," said Mustofa.

Mostofa said that he could not wash the corpse because he did not have a female mortuary team member.

"Each team must have a female member, but we don't want to wash it because first, the process requires a lot of water, secondly it doesn't follow the procedure, thirdly this is a COVID-19 corpse. the impact (of the virus) on the water. We don't dare to take that risk," said Mustofa.

Fortunately, at that time an ustadz appeared at the Indonesian Mosque Council who could enlighten and calm the family so that the family could receive the body only by doing tayammum.

"With the help of Ustadz from DMI, we finally did (the funeral of the corpse) according to the procedures for handling COVID-19 bodies," said Mustofa.

Sunter Village Head, Agung Danang Wijanarka, said that the COVID-19 mortuary officer had received training twice from the Head of the Tanjung Priok Health Sub-Department and from the Tanjung Priok Health Center.

"The first training was held on June 29, while the second training was on July 5," said Danang.

The current number of COVID-19 corpse recovery officers in Sunter Agung Village consists of 29 PPSU officers and 10 residents from the Community Early Awareness Forum (FKDM), Karang Taruna, and the Tanjung Priok Village Community Security and Order Awareness Group.

"So, in total, we have 39 COVID-19 corpse recovery personnel which were formed by the Sunter Agung Village independently. They have been trained because they participated in training on COVID-19 burial procedures," said Danang.