Chinese crematorium forced to reverse policy on handing ashes to relatives in bags after outcry
- It announced it would no longer transfer ashes to urns unless they were bought from the funeral home, but municipal authorities stepped in
- Two managers have been suspended and it is under investigation
A state-run funeral home and crematorium in central China has been forced to reverse a decision that staff would no longer transfer ashes to urns for clients who supplied their own after a public outcry.
Two managers of the funeral home were also suspended over the controversial new policy that was due to begin on Friday and municipal authorities are investigating, news website Thepaper.cn reported.
The Ningxiang Municipal Funeral Home in Hunan province announced on Wednesday that ashes would be handed over in bags to relatives of the dead if they did not buy an urn from the funeral home. They would then have to transfer the ashes to their own urns themselves.
The decision was made to avoid potential quality problems in cremation urns supplied by family members, according to the announcement.
The municipal civil affairs bureau – which oversees the funeral home – overturned the new policy the next day after a public backlash, releasing a statement saying it was inconvenient for grieving relatives and that there should be no change to the cremation service.
Director Wu Ping and the funeral home’s Communist Party secretary Chen Luhua had been suspended and an investigation was under way, Ningxiang party boss Zhou Hui told Thepaper.cn on Friday.
