Why morticians knock before entering the mortuary - Ewurabena Quartey explains

A knock on the door usually signals that someone is about to enter a room, but for some morticians, knocking before entering the mortuary is more than a routine act.

According to Ewurabena Quartey, a manager of Jabez Dominic Funeral Home, the practice is a way of showing respect to the dead.

In an interview with Roselyn Feli, she explained that the fact that someone has died does not mean they should no longer be treated with dignity.

“Knocking is just like entering somebody's room. If you are entering, you just have to make a signal, something to make them aware that somebody's at the door, entering, and we are maintaining respect.

“The fact that they are dead doesn't mean that respect has to end, no,” she explained.

According to Quartey, the same respect is maintained when morticians are preparing a body for burial.

She said workers sometimes speak to the deceased and ask for permission before touching, bathing, or embalming them, even though they know there will be no response.

“We take it as if we are caring for them. You see, we have people aged, especially being bedridden; picture it in that way. When we are touching that person, you would ask for permission before you touch them, though we are not going to get any particular response,” she explained.

Quartey compared the practice to what happens in hospitals after a person dies, known as last offices.

“Before we do the embalming or the bathing, we ask them for permission. So, there's something called last offices when you work in the hospital. So, nurses and health practitioners are aware of this. They do it for anybody who passes on in their facilities,” she said.

She added that the process also reminds morticians that they are handling a person's body and privacy.

According to her, workers may see scars, deformities, or other parts of the body that the person would normally not expose to others.

“You just have to speak to the person, make the person understand that you are going to see the nakedness of the person because you are going to strip them totally naked. You just say something simple in your head. I'm coming to see something I'm not supposed to see,” she continued.

“Some of them come with deformities, scars you are not supposed to see. Yes, so coming to see all those things, you are making sure that whatever you see stays there, so something like a bond you are coming to have with them,” she added.

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