KLANG: The Selangor government had contacted the Foreign Ministry yesterday in an effort to speed up identifying of the remains of foreign nationals who died from COVID-19 at three hospitals in the state.

Menteri Besar Datuk Seri Amirudin Shari said this was following the remains of COVID-19 victims not being managed fast, especially at Tengku Ampuan Rahimah Hospital(HTAR), Klang; Shah Alam Hospital and Sungai Buloh Hospital.

"Yesterday, I contacted the Foreign Ministry and its minister on the matter and they would try to resolve the issue. This is because some of the remains of the foreign nationals need to be confirmed by the relevant high commissions/embassies.

"We will try to speed up the process as (some remains) could take one week or even up to a month to be identified. They have to be kept in the mortuary before identification could be made for the burial process," he told reporters after observing the COVID-19 vaccination programme, here, today.

Amirudin said the state government was also making arrangements for hearses with the local authorities in speeding up the removal of the remains of COVID-19 victims from the hospital mortuaries.

Yesterday, he announced the Centralised Management of COVID-19 Victims' Remains, an effort by the state government to shorten the process towards lessening the number of remains at a number of hospitals in Selangor.

Amirudin had in a statement, said that the initiative would involve the managing of the remains of COVID-19 victims, whether Muslims or non-Muslims, at three hospitals, namely, Shah Alam Hospital, Sungai Buloh Hospital and HTAR.

He added that for this initiative, the Muslim burial grounds at Seksyen 21 in Shah Alam and Selat Klang in Port Klang had been chosen for COVID-19 victims while for the non-Muslims, the burial or cremation would be referred to the local authorities.

-- BERNAMA