A Funeral Company Visiting the Sick, Where Do We Draw the Line?

[Archival Sense]

There is something deeply uncomfortable about seeing a funeral company at a hospital bedside.

Not because the people who work for funeral companies are incapable of kindness. They are human beings, after all. And not because businesses should be prohibited from giving back to the communities they serve.

The discomfort comes from what a funeral company represents.

Recently, Aplus Funeral Management, one of Uganda’s established funeral service providers, found itself at the centre of an online debate after its staff visited hospitals to check on recovering patients as part of what the company describes as corporate social responsibility.

The idea, at least on paper, sounds compassionate. Aplus says its staff are there to support patients and families going through difficult moments.

But is a hospital really the right place for a funeral company to do that?

That is the question worth asking.

Imagine lying in a hospital bed, fighting to recover, when people walk in wearing the identity of a company whose business is death. Even if they come with the kindest intentions, their presence may immediately introduce an association that the patient desperately wants to keep away: death.

And that appears to be happening.

Aplus says some patients and their relatives have chased its staff away or become frightened when they discover who they are. Perhaps they reveal something important about how Ugandans perceive death.

We do not generally separate death from mourning. Funeral homes are associated with grief, loss, wakes and burials. Their appearance in a hospital, therefore, can carry a meaning that is completely different from the one intended by the company.

Aplus may see a recovering patient.

The patient may see a reminder of mortality.

That gap between intention and perception is where the real problem lies.

There is also another uncomfortable question: where does corporate social responsibility end and business development begin?

Corporate social responsibility is never entirely detached from a company's public image.

A funeral company that visits hospitals, after all, is not like a bank donating books to a school or a telecom company providing clean water to a community. Its core business is directly connected to one of the most emotionally sensitive experiences a family can face.

That makes the ethical calculation different.

There is something valuable in businesses recognising that their responsibility to society should extend beyond making money. Funeral companies, perhaps more than most businesses, interact with families during some of their hardest moments. Their staff understand grief, loss and the practical difficulties families face when someone dies.

It is therefore not unreasonable for such a company to want to extend compassion to people in difficult circumstances.

The problem may not be whether Aplus should give back. It may be how it chooses to do so.

If hospital visits are frightening patients, perhaps the company needs to rethink the setting, the messaging and the way its staff introduce themselves.

There are countless ways Aplus could support patients without putting its funeral identity at the centre of the encounter. It could support hospital welfare programmes, provide meals or essential items to vulnerable patients, assist families who cannot afford basic hospital needs, or work through hospitals and charitable organisations rather than arriving directly at patients' bedsides.

That way, the act of kindness remains, but the symbolism changes.

Because ultimately, corporate social responsibility should be judged not only by what the giver intends, but also by how the recipient experiences it.

Aplus may genuinely mean well. That should be acknowledged.

But good intentions do not automatically make an intervention appropriate.

A hospital is a place where people come to fight for life. A funeral home is a business built around what happens when that fight is lost.

Putting the two worlds together may be well intentioned, but it is bound to raise difficult questions.

Courtesy Photos and Video

 

[The Worst]

Sijasoma yote kwa sababu hiyo lugha kidogo inachosha but summary fupi niliyoifanya siyo tu kujifanya wanaenda kuangalia wagonjwa na kuwafariji ila hata kuonekana bidhaa zao karibu na maeneo ya hospital siyo kitu kizuri.

Muhimbili pale majeneza nje nje mgonjwa anapita anajiuliza sitarudi ndani ya box kweli?