Lonely burial for Congo fever victim

HEALTH officials buried 37-year-old Keetmanshoop resident Hendrik Hartebees in Windhoek on Tuesday soon after he died of Congo fever at the Windhoek Central Hospital.

Senior medical officer at the Keetmanshoop State Hospital Dr Refanus Kooper confirmed yesterday that Hartebees was buried the same day he died, in accordance with World Health Organisation (WHO) standards in order to prevent the spread of the highly contagious disease.

Kooper also said he informed Hartebees’ wife, Anna, about the burial and the reasons why she could not attend her husband’s burial.

Hartebees’ relatives, Kooper said, would only be allowed to visit the grave after six months as per WHO health standards.

Anna Hartebees confirmed yesterday that she had not attended the burial and that Kooper had informed them of it.

The family, including two children, was quarantined in their house at Keetmanshoop’s Tseiblaagte residential area after Hartebees was diagnosed with Congo fever.

Anna Hartebees said she felt lonely and scared when she was barred from contacting her husband when he fell ill and when she was also told not to have contact with other people.

“It would have consoled me if I had at least seen his face before he was buried,” Anna said.

She further said that being quarantined was like being imprisoned. “We were told the quarantine would be lifted on 16 April,” she said.

Health officials, she said, gave the family a thermometer to measure their body temperature every day and to then inform them whenever their body temperatures rose above 37 degrees Celcius.

While isolated in their home, the Hartebees family members are receiving food from a neighbour who works at the local hospital.

“I give him a list of food items I want to buy as well as money, and he delivers the items over the fence to me,” she said.

Hartebees’ cousin, Katrina Pieters (60), said she had a sleepless night on Tuesday when she learnt that the burial had already taken place.

“It is sad,” she said, adding that Hendrik Hartebees was very close to her because they had grown up together.

“How can you not bury someone you love and with whom you have lived together so many years?” Pieters asked. “Maybe God knows, and we must accept it.”

– luqman@namibian.com.na