Wife sues health ministry to rebury husband

The wife of the late Omusati director of education Laban Shapange, Hilya Shapange, has taken the Ministry of Health and Social Services to the High Court.

This is in a bid to compel the ministry to allow her to exhume her husband’s remains at Oniipa cemetery and to rebury them at the ancestral cemetery.

The ancestral gravesite is at Ondobe in the Ohangwena region, about 50km from Oniipa.

She says this makes it difficult for her to visit her late husband’s grave.

Shapange died of Covid-19 in September 2020 at Onandjokwe Hospital in the Oshikoto region.

According to court documents filed with the Oshakati High Court, Hilya says subsequent to her husband’s death, her eldest son, Benjamin, was informed by ministry officials that, in line with Covid-19 regulations, his father had to be buried within 72 hours at a burial site determined by the ministry.

She says they were then directed by ministry officials to bury Shapange at the Oniipa cemetery.

“My [reburial] request was declined by the director of health in the Oshikoto region, Joshua Nghipangelwa, because Onandjokwe and Ondobe are not in the same region, nor are they in the same district,” she says.

Hilya says the instructions of the health director were followed and her husband was buried at Oniipa.

“On the day of the burial, the health director was present and he undertook to ensure that the cemetery would be fenced to respect the dearly departed, but to date no such fencing has taken place,” she says.

Hilya says in early 2021, her eldest son told her her late husband’s grave was under water and could collapse at any time.
“This is not the state in which I wish to see my late husband’s final resting place,” she says.

Hilya says Oshikoto’s health director told her the grave was the Oniipa Town Council’s responsibility.

She says Benjamin then addressed a letter to the executive director of health and social services, Ben Nangombe, as well as to Nghipangelwa, the Oniipa Town Council and Onandjokwe Hospital’s superintendent.

“There has been no valid reason that has been furnished to me by the respondent [the health ministry] or his officials for their unwillingness to furnish me with the requisite concurrence prior to me obtaining permission from this honourable court to exhume my late husband’s remains.”

Hilya says it was only due to Covid-19 that Shapange was buried at Oniipa cemetery.

“That was not according to my wishes and desires. I strongly believe his soul would only be at rest when his remains are buried at the ancestral gravesite at Ondobe,” she says.

‘BURIED LIKE A DOG’

According to the letter Benjamin wrote to Nangombe and Nghipangelwa, his father was buried “like a dog”.

“… it was just an insult to the family and the ministry he worked for,” he says.

Hilya also wrote a letter to Nghipangelwa through her lawyer, Inonge Mainga, in October 2021, in which she said she was in the process of finalising a relevant application to obtain a court order to have Shapange’s remains exhumed.

Nghipangelwa responded in October 2021, saying “as the matter is still in the court, and the order of exhumation is still pending, my office would like to refrain from discussing the matter which is before the court”.

The Public and Environmental Health Act provides that the exhumation of human remains may be conducted on the authority of a competent court six months after a burial.

Executive director of health and social services Ben Nangombe says the family should have approached his office before going to the High Court.

“… so we could help them as we did with other families. There is no need to go to the High Court,” he said yesterday.