NHS nurse Donald Suelto died alone in his London flat. It took his family six days to find out who had his body

When police knocked on Emylene Suelto Robertson’s door late on Tuesday last week in Dunbar, on Scotland’s east coast, they confirmed the news she had dreaded. Her uncle, NHS nurse Donald “Dondee” Suelto, had died alone in his London flat of suspected coronavirus. He was 51.

The last thing Robertson expected was to be thrust into a wild goose chase locating her uncle’s remains. But in the age of the coronavirus pandemic, for the deceased who have no official next of kin, laying them to rest has been fraught with bureaucracy – and Robertson spent a tormenting six days locating her uncle’s body.

“We looked everywhere, me and my husband. We phoned so many police, different coroners and funeral homes searching for him. But no one told us what they did after they picked up his body from the flat. My family in the Philippines called me every day asking what we were doing with the body,” she said.

“‘Is he coming back here? Is he going to be cremated or buried? I couldn’t answer them.”

On Tuesday this week, after many hours on the phone as she was sent from one person or department to another, Robertson finally located Suelto’s body in Poplar coroner’s court, which is yet to rule on the cause of death.

An NHS nurse for 18 years who migrated from the Philippines, Suelto worked in the chemotherapy department at Hammersmith hospital in west London. His niece described him as a “fun, joyful, dedicated and caring” man.

Three days after treating a patient on 25 March who tested positive for Covid-19, Suelto was sent home to self-isolate.

Robertson was in regular contact with her uncle over FaceTime and text when he began to develop mild symptoms three days later. “My uncle said to me: ‘I will catch the virus, because my patient coughed in front of me and I had no mask’.”

The last contact they had was on 2 April when he mentioned paracetamol was doing nothing to bring his fever down. When she didn’t hear from him for five days, Robertson informed the police on 7 April. They broke down the door of his flat that same evening only to find him dead.

“My uncle died in the service of the NHS, catching this virus because of the lack of PPE. But my family struggled to find his body. Why was nobody responsible for him?”

Her grief has been exacerbated by the financial strain of arranging his funeral. Robertson and a friend of Suelto’s are crowdfunding for his funeral expenses online.

A spokesperson for Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust said: “We are very saddened by Donald’s death and our thoughts and condolences are with his family, friends and colleagues at this especially difficult time. We strictly follow national guidance on the use of personal protective equipment. Donald was not working in an area for Covid-19 patients.”

Suelto is not the only one whose remains have been lost in the chaos of the pandemic.

Mohamed el Aswad, an 84-year-old British-Egyptian pensioner, died alone of coronavirus on 12 April in Manor Farm care home in East Ham, east London.

An introverted, inquisitive man who loved pottery, for over four decades El Aswad worked as an accountant. Unmarried with no children, it was his nephew in Dubai, Mohamed Morsi, who was first informed that his uncle had passed away.

“My uncle supported me from A-Z in my life. He supported his family in Egypt, even distant relatives. Every single pound he had he was giving to his family,” he said.

Like Robertson, Morsi’s grief was also compounded by the logistics of arranging his funeral from afar. “In Egypt, funerals are cheap, it’s not that costly. But I found it will cost around £4,000 in the UK. I cannot pay for my uncle’s janazah (funeral). I’m earning to live, I’m not saving anything.”

The government offers some financial assistance under the Funeral Expenses Payment scheme, but this does not usually cover all the costs. The average cost of a basic burial is £4,975, while cremations are slightly cheaper at £3,858, according to the annual Sun Life Cost of Dying report.

Similar to the orthodox Jewish community, cremation of the dead is prohibited in Islam.

Concerned that his uncle’s body would be cremated if it was left unclaimed, a friend of Morsi’s referred him to Eden Care UK, a charity that accommodates the cultural and religious practices of the deceased and provides a vital financial lifeline for grieving families unable to afford funeral expenses. The charity helped coordinate the burial of 42 Grenfell Tower victims in 2017.

Before the pandemic, they received an average of three to four referrals a week. Now they are receiving up to eight a day.

Abu Mumin, a social worker at the charity, said: “A lot of these families are just stuck. They’re grieving and then they have to plan funerals they can’t be involved with. We’re in a war-time situation.”

For Mumin, the aims of the charity were bound by a religious obligation to honour the dignity of the dead and perform the last rites.

“He probably would have got lost in the system, so I contacted a funeral director and I said ‘Quickly find that body. Let’s give that man a dignified burial.’ For us as Muslims, it’s a fard kifayah (community obligation) if people do not come forward and bury these people. We are here to help anyone who is stuck with the burial planning, with the burial costs. We are their brothers and sister in this hour of their need.”

• This article was amended on 28 April 2020. An earlier version incorrectly stated that the government’s Funeral Expenses Payment scheme was capped at £1,000.