Switched at death

Jorge Gino Bernados in his Facebook account photo.

An alleged mix-up in body bag labels at the Commonwealth Health Center led to the unwanted cremation of a body that was supposed to be repatriated whole to the Philippines, as requested by the family of the person who passed away.

The mistake was only discovered during the public viewing, when co-employees and friends of Jorge Gino Bernados saw that the body that they had offered prayers for nine days at San Jose Church actually belonged to another man.

Bernados’ body, according to family members and co-workers, was initially to be repatriated to the Philippines at the request of his family so they could hold a funeral and see their loved one for the last time.

Unfortunately, because of a mislabeling issue, Bernados’ body was cremated and his ashes were sent off to a different family in Hawaii and another unnamed dead person was in Bernados’ coffin during an arranged viewing at the San Jose Chapel on March 21.

CHC morgue staff allegedly placed Bernados’ remains in a body bag that was labeled with another person’s name—a decedent that had been confirmed for cremation. CHC released the body bag to the Borja Funeral Homes a week before Bernados’ body was scheduled to be released.

Compounding the initial mistake, Saipan World Resort allegedly identified the wrong body—the body initially meant for cremation—and confirmed that it was Bernados’ and that body was released to the funeral home and was prepared for viewing.

Bernardos was a Saipan World Resort maintenance employee who died in his room over three weeks ago.

When the switch was discovered, it was too late because Bernados’ remains had already been cremated a week before and his urn was sent off to the wrong family.

Saipan World Resort’s Human Resources refused to comment on the issue.

The Commonwealth Healthcare Corp., which operates CHC, released an official statement, saying they are currently looking into the situation.

“This was an unfortunate incident. The CHCC is currently conducting an investigation into the matter, including but not limited to chain of custody issues and the misidentification of the deceased by a third party. The CHCC extends our deepest sympathies to the families affected,” the statement said.

In an interview with Borja Funeral Homes owner Frances Borja, she said two things happened that led to the cremation of the wrong body. One was mislabeling by CHC and, second, was the misidentification by Bernados’ employer.

“A lot of things happened. The employer also did not identify the remains correctly. It’s incredible but it happened. Before he was released from CHC, an employer representative identified the body as Jorge,” she said.

According to Borja, a Saipan World Resort representative personally identified the wrong body and confirmed it was their employee, Bernados, before CHC released the body to them at the funeral home.

“They confirmed it was him [Bernados] and everything was settled and the viewing for [Bernados] was scheduled. It was during the viewing that some people noticed that it was not [Bernados]. My staff retrieved the remains after the service and we proceeded to check other markings on the person and then we found that the markings were not there, so immediately the body was brought back to the hospital and we made the hospital aware that they released the wrong body,” she said.

When the switch was discovered, it was then too late, Borja said, because Bernados’ remains had already been cremated and sent off.

“The cremated remains were sent out on March 15. We didn’t find out until March 21 that it was Jorge Bernados’ body that was cremated. …Before the viewing, Bernados was already cremated but at the time, we did not know it was him but, like I said…I don’t know who from [Saipan] World Resort did the identification but they did go up there and identified the body and confirmed it was Jorge,” Borja said.

Fortunately, Bernados’ remains were retrieved from Hawaii and will be personally carried to Manila by his brother today.

Borja added that the hospital may have made the mistake because the body was already decomposing.

“The remains were in a body bag and already in the stage of decomposition so maybe [that’s why] the mistake was made. I don’t know, but our policy is for the next of kin to identify the body before cremation and apparently that identification was made and the cremation was authorized,” she said.

The body that was mistakenly released and identified as Bernados has also been cremated and sent off to the right family.