TANGLE RIVER, St James — Frustrated that she has heard nothing since she signed a paper authorising an autopsy on her farm worker husband, Marcia Yapp is pleading for answers. Her husband of 15 years, Garvin Yapp, died on a Canadian farm on August 14 in what has been described as a job-related accident. An investigation was launched into his death.

“Right now I don’t know if they have done the autopsy on my husband. From I sign the paper nobody has reached out to me to say, ‘Yes, the autopsy is done.’ They were there pushing and prodding, wanting me to sign this thing,” the distraught woman told the Jamaica Observer from a friend’s veranda last Thursday.

The paperwork, she said, also gave the go-ahead for her husband’s body to be released to a funeral home.

In the early stages after her husband’s death, Yapp said, she was contacted on a number of occasions by different individuals. These included Minister of Labour and Social Security Karl Samuda and other representatives from the ministry, as well as the farm where her husband worked in Canada. During those talks she said she was officially informed that her husband died when a section of his clothing got caught in a machine and he was squeezed to death.

In a release on August 16 the labour ministry expressed “deep sadness” at Garvin Yapp’s death. It also said Samuda had spoken with Yapp’s widow by phone from his tour of farms in Canada and assurance was given that the ministry would provide continued support.

However, Marcia Yapp told the Sunday Observer that the ministry’s promise that it would be there for her in her time of need has not been kept.

“I was the one that had to reach out to the social worker to ask him to send grief counsellors because I wanted somebody to talk to. He eventually sent two persons on Monday [August 29],” she said.

Hoping for closure, she wants to lay her husband to rest. She said she has left several unanswered messages asking someone she only knows as Mrs Gardner, from the farm work programme, to get in touch with her to discuss the way forward.

“I don’t know what is going on. I need to find out what is going on,” the grieving widow lamented.

She told the Sunday Observer that she and her stepdaughter had unsuccessfully explored getting emergency visas to go to Canada to get answers for themselves.

“All we asked of the Ministry of Labour was that they assist us in getting emergency visas to go to Canada. They went around and beat around the bush and they were not forthcoming,” Yapp said.

She said she had raised the issue with Samuda during their August 16 phone conversation.

“I also asked about the process of the autopsy, ‘Is it similar to Jamaica?’ He said he was not aware but said he would find out, and when he gets back… he would have gotten in touch with me. Since then I’ve not heard anything from him,” she claimed.

Efforts to apply for a visa using an invitation letter received from a friend hit a snag because she does not have a death certificate for her husband. It is needed to complete the application, she said.

Yapp said she has also been left confused and concerned by a conversation she had with Peter Van Berlo Sr, president of the family-run Berlo’s Best Farm in Norfolk County where her husband had worked for more than three decades. She noted that while Van Berlo Sr expressed condolence, a question he posed about her husband’s health left her upset.

“He was saying that my husband was like a son to him and he’s wondering if he had a medical condition. Now, that got me upset because we all know if they have medical conditions they can’t go on farm work, because they have to go through the medical process. So I said, ‘No. You and I both know my husband had no medical condition,’ ” Yapp related.

According to Yapp, her husband worked at the same farm for 34 of his 35 years as a farmhand. He operated and repaired heavy machinery.

The lack of information and uncertainty about when she will be able to bury him is taking a toll. She has not been sleeping and rarely eats, she said. She has no idea if she will be able to do her job as a teacher at Maldon High School when the new school year begins tomorrow.

“How can I go into a stressful environment with this stress that I am going through,” she moaned.

“Nobody is calling; the boss has not called me again so I don’t know what is going on. I am frustrated, I am crying. I don’t know what is going on,” said Yapp.

When contacted, a social worker whose number the widow provided told the Sunday Observer he could not provide a response on the matter and referred questions to the Ministry of Labour and Social Security’s head office. When contacted on Friday, the ministry’s communications unit asked for e-mailed questions. Up to press time there was no reply to queries submitted.

Yapp, meanwhile, is begging the local authorities to reach out to her.

“I want them to tell me what’s going on and to send my husband’s body here so I can bury him as he ought to be buried,” she appealed.