“I Get more than five bodies in a week” — 24-Year-Old Mortician Reveals
According to a report by Ghanaweb on Tuesday, Jun 16, 2026, a 24-year-old mortician and hearse driver, Ewurabena Quartey, has opened up about the unwritten rules that guide her daily work with the dead, revealing why she and her colleagues knock before stepping into mortuary rooms.
Speaking in an interview with BBC Pidgin News, shared in a video on X on June 15, 2026, Quartey explained that the practice has nothing to do with expecting a reply. It is purely about preserving dignity for those who can no longer speak for themselves.
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“In Ghana, we have this culture where you knock before you enter somebody’s house. Before you enter, you knock, and there’s a response. But when we knock on the doors in the mortuary, it’s not to get a response, no. We know they are not alive. We know they are not active, but we knock on it to demonstrate our respect to them,” she said.
According to her, that respect does not stop the moment a person dies. She believes the dead deserve continued recognition because they once had full lives, families, and people who loved them.
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“They had wives; they were once living. We don’t have to throw away their respect because they are dead. We still maintain their respect. Even if you trip on them, you say sorry. There are things you do when you are bathing them, or when you are tending them, or when accidentally you leave them, you still say sorry because you have to treat them as such,” she added.
Quartey also gave a glimpse into how unpredictable her job can be. Some weeks bring in more than five bodies for her to handle, while other stretches, sometimes lasting an entire month, can pass without a single case.
“There are times and seasons where I get more than five bodies in a week. And there are times too, even a whole month, you might not see anybody there. The job is seasonal,” she said.
Her comments have sparked conversation online about the emotional and ethical dimensions of mortuary work, an area of the funeral industry rarely discussed publicly in Ghana
