Doctors and other hospital staff move a body from emergency room in a hospital in Beijing after efforts to revive the patient failed. Photo: CFP

Hua Xue's (pseudonym) body has been lying in a funeral parlor at Guangzhou, Guangdong Province for 12 years. His family members never come to visit him.

He was sent to the parlor from a factory in Changping township in 2003. His family asked the police to place his body in the parlor in consideration of the economic disputes Hua was involved before his death, reported the Yangcheng Evening News in April.

But soon, thereafter the factory where he worked was closed, the police station in charge of his case was merged with another, and his family dropped out of contact. Hua's remains have been kept at the local funeral parlor ever since, just one of over 100 unclaimed remains that have been kept there for a year or more.

The unclaimed remains, which are supposed to be buried in peace, have turned out to be a headache for hospitals and funeral parlors in many cities, including Jinan, Shandong Province and Urumqi, Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region.

"Over 130 unclaimed remains have been preserved in our city's hospitals and we do not know how to deal with them," said Hao Yuewei, deputy director of the funeral management department at the civil affairs bureau in Hohhot, capital of North China's Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, expressing his worries to the Xinhua News Agency, adding that one set of remains has been stored for 20 years.

Increasing unclaimed remains

According to the Yangcheng Evening News, unclaimed remains account for one fourth of the 430 cold cabinets in the funeral home where Hua's body is kept. Most of them have family members who refused to claim the bodies. The number increased from 48 in 2010 to 80 in 2014, and over 100 this year.

Of 49 cold cabinets in the morgue of the First Affiliated Hospital of the Inner Mongolia Medical University (IMMU), 31 are occupied by unclaimed remains, said xinhua. "We took receipt of the earliest corpse in 2001. It cannot be cremated because we don't have approval from the public security department," a hospital's employee was quoted as saying. 

A regulation on funeral management issued by the State Council in 1997 stipulates that cremating the remains of people who died of accidents or other reasons requires a death certificate from the local public security department.

Thirty-nine out of 63 cabinets at the Inner Mongolia People's Hospital store unclaimed remains, and "the number increases every year, seriously affecting the morgue's normal operation," said a hospital employee.

Hao said that Hohhot's morgues can store a total of 197 dead bodies. As of now, 135 of those spaces are occupied by unclaimed bodies.

The unclaimed remains not only occupy limited cold cabinet space, but also cost a great deal of money.

"The expense for storing a corpse is 20,000 yuan($3,218) per year, meaning that we would spend 2 million yuan to preserve 100 dead bodies," a worker at the Guangzhou funeral home told the Yangcheng Evening News, adding that most fees are shouldered by the home.

The worker added that they have added another 100 cold cabinets, but "it was still not enough." Although the home has tried to persuade families to come claim their loved ones' bodies and pledged to cut some fees, many remain reluctant to come.

The origins of the unclaimed

A lack of information has led to the increasing number of unclaimed remains. "Sixteen unclaimed corpses had no names or clues to their families when they were delivered via ambulance," said a worker at the morgue of the IMMU's First Affiliated Hospital.

Hao adds that most of them died in car accidents, and first aid workers did not record identity information, making it difficult to process the remains. "The longer the remains are kept, the harder it is to identify them."

Wang Wenqi, deputy director of the funeral service center at IMMU's First Affiliated Hospital, said that several unclaimed remains had been abandoned by their families.

Some have names and clear causes of death; some were even accompanied when they were sent to the funeral parlor. However, after the remains were placed in hospitals, said Wang, many remains were unclaimed as families or employers refused to pay expenses, while others were left because they were involved in unresolved disputes.

Hao pointed out that, based on the local standard for preserving dead bodies, which is 50 yuan per day, claiming a body left in the morgue for 20 years would result in a bill of over 300,000 yuan.

Different cities have different regulations for dealing with unclaimed remains. Guangdong civil affairs authorities have ruled that unclaimed remains can be kept no more than 90 days. After that, funeral parlors must report the case to civil affair authorities for handling. Authorities in Hohhot say that local public security department should publish a 60-day claim notice. After that, funeral parlors are to cremate the corpse on the authority of a death certificate from the police.

"However, it is not easy for the public security department to give a death certificate," said Hao. For unidentified remains, police worry that families might demand the body one day, while for those that are identified but involved in disputes, police worry that others involved in the dispute might stir up troubles. 

Tweaking legal policies

As funeral parlors are banned from cremating any bodies without a death certificate, unclaimed remains have become a dilemma for the public security bureau, civil affairs departments, and both hospitals and funeral parlors.

"The way out is to improve current regulations. We need further details on punishment for those who abandon remains, the duties of public security departments, funeral parlors and hospitals, and how to protect their rights," said Wang Qingmin, deputy director of social affairs department of the Inner Mongolia Civil Affairs Bureau.

Hao also suggested that local civil affairs departments could designate a unit to be responsible for receiving unclaimed bodies and give the unit financial support.

Many hospitals said that they are striving to reduce the number of unclaimed remains while hoping that public security departments could give death certificates in accordance with regulations.