Albuquerque Indigents

There are many bodies that go unclaimed either because their families cannot be located or because the family cannot or will not take financial responsibility for the final disposition of the body. Many ask us what happens in this case. The answer: You, the taxpayer, fund the final disposition of indigents through the county.

 Anyone has the option of “unclaiming” their Loved One’s body. So when we receive a call from someone who has no money for an immediate cremation, this is their only option. I hesitate then to call the body a Loved One, though. I guess at this point, it really is only a dead body—a corpse that is society’s responsibility. The body is usually held at the county morgue, which for Albuquerque is the Office of the Medical Investigators, the OMI. You can’t imagine the quantity of bodies that are being stored there awaiting someone to claim.

 The duty of handling these indigent cases used to rotate among all the mortuaries in the county and the cost was reimbursed by the county. Eventually, the contract was placed up for bidding by Bernalillo County and the lowest bid received a portion or the entire contract. In the past, bodies were buried but recently they are cremated. The saddest part of processing an indigent is the “unknowns” we type into the death certificate. Imagine all the information that is needed for a death certificate. When a body is found dead with a minimal amount of identification, there is no record of their dad’s name or their mother’s maiden name. Even sadder is that a family will have all the information for the death certificate but choose to have nothing with the body or its disposition.