{"id":2758,"date":"2020-04-26T21:01:31","date_gmt":"2020-04-26T14:01:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/illume-emag.com\/?p=2758"},"modified":"2020-04-26T21:08:27","modified_gmt":"2020-04-26T14:08:27","slug":"ecuador-woman-learns-sister-alive-cremating-someone-elses-body","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lavyon.com\/en\/ecuador-woman-learns-sister-alive-cremating-someone-elses-body\/","title":{"rendered":"Ecuador woman learns sister is alive after cremating someone else’s body"},"content":{"rendered":"

GUAYAQUIL, Ecuador — An Ecuadorean woman in coronavirus-ravaged Guayaquil city learned on Friday that her sister was alive, weeks after cremating a misidentified body that health authorities had given her after proclaiming her sibling dead.<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"
Houses are seen in the low-income community Monte Sinai and where authorities are building a new cemetery during the Covid-19 outbreak, in Guayaquil, Ecuador April 23, 2020. Photo: Reuters<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Alba Maruri, 74, was admitted to an intensive care unit on March 27 suffering from a high fever and difficulty breathing, and medical personnel told her family later that day that she had died, Maruri\u2019s sister Aura said by telephone.<\/p>\n

A week later, health authorities handed over to relatives what they thought were Maruri\u2019s remains. Health workers on Friday returned to the family\u2019s home in Guayaquil, the epicenter of Ecuador\u2019s outbreak.<\/p>\n

\u201cAn ambulance arrived with a doctor, a psychiatrist and the social worker. They apologized, and they tell us \u2018Your sister is alive,\u2019 and we were in shock,\u201d said Aura Maruri. \u201cIt is a miracle of God what has happened.\u201d<\/p>\n

Maruri was suspected to have contracted COVID-19, the respiratory disease caused by the novel coronavirus, but was never diagnosed with it because she was not tested.<\/p>\n

Her family was not able to visit her until Saturday because of curfew measures enacted to prevent the continued spread of the disease.<\/p>\n

Aura Maruri says she does not know what to do with the metal chest holding the ashes of the body delivered by mistake.<\/p>\n

\u201cI couldn\u2019t sleep because I was afraid they would take her (remains) to those containers for the dead,\u201d said Maruri, referring to refrigerated containers set up as mobile morgues as the pandemic spread through Guayaquil.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere was a failure by the hospital.\u201d<\/p>\n

The incident underlines the difficulties facing Ecuador, where the coronavirus pandemic has overwhelmed the health system and left sanitary workers struggling to collect and identify the burgeoning number of bodies.<\/p>\n

Reuters<\/em>\u00a0was unable immediately to obtain comment from Alba Maruri or from Abel Gilbert Ponton Hospital, where she is still being treated but is no longer in intensive care.<\/p>\n

Health Minister Juan Carlos Zevallos told reporters that case was under investigation, adding that health authorities guarantee the identification of corpses and that hospitals keep track of the deceased.<\/p>\n

The country has recorded nearly 23,000 cases of the coronavirus, 576 deaths, and another 1,060 people who are suspected to have died from it.<\/p>\n

But the government recognizes that the total number of deaths during the pandemic has been much higher than normal, and that many have died before being tested.<\/p>\n

Source Reuters<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

GUAYAQUIL, Ecuador — An Ecuadorean woman in coronavirus-ravaged Guayaquil city learned on Friday that her sister was alive, weeks after cremating a misidentified body that health authorities had given her after proclaiming her sibling dead. Alba Maruri, 74, was admitted to an intensive care unit on March 27 suffering from a high fever and difficulty […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2759,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[761],"tags":[1087,1123],"class_list":{"0":"post-2758","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-celebrity-buzz","8":"tag-coronavirus","9":"tag-covid-19"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lavyon.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2758","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lavyon.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lavyon.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lavyon.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lavyon.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2758"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lavyon.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2758\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lavyon.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2759"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lavyon.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2758"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lavyon.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2758"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lavyon.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2758"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}