The family of a haemophiliac who died at a Dublin hospital were shocked to find security-guards around his coffin when they arrived at the hospital mortuary for the removal of his remains.
An undertaker known to the family met them at the door and told them hospital staff had said nobody could touch the remains, the tribunal was told yesterday. The family were not told why or what the man died of.
A doctor approached the deceased's son-in-law in the mortuary as the funeral was about to leave to ask if the dead man's wife had been sleeping with him. When the reply was yes, the doctor said she shouldn't have been.
Giving evidence to the tribunal, the son-in-law, using the pseudonym Larry, said he did not ask why, as it was all "sprung" on the family as the funeral was taking place in 1984.
The doctor gave him gloves and ordered him to burn all the dead man's personal belongings and told him nobody should use his razor or other such items. Again, he was not told why.
A few days later the family read in a newspaper that a man had died of AIDS at St James's Hospital and they assumed it referred to his father-in-law.
The witness said his father-in-law had a prostate operation in September 1984. At home he turned very yellow. He returned to hospital within days and died shortly afterwards. "We were not told what was wrong with him, just that he was very ill and we knew that ourselves," Larry said.
The hospital had asked if they could carry out a post-mortem and the family gave permission. They were never told the results.
When the family arrived at the hospital mortuary for the funeral one security-guard stood beside the coffin and another at the door. "I understand they were there to prevent anybody touching the body," he said.
Larry said up to 60 people had travelled from the south-east for the funeral and it was left to him to tell them they could not touch the body.
"We felt we should have been informed of this prior to travelling up . . . we thought we were treated very badly," he said.
Had they known in advance, they could have avoided an embarrassing situation and taken the body to a private funeral home.
Larry said the incident had a terrible effect on his wife, who was an only child. She was still receiving counselling.
"There are a lot of unanswered questions and we would like to just get the truth. We think we deserve the right to be told. We were never told anything," he said.