Salima Hospital closes mortuary

The closure of three cold rooms at Salima District Hospital mortuary has forced the institution to dump dead bodies all over the place inside the mortuary, authorities have confirmed.

Salima district health authorities have warned that the situation poses a health threat to the living while locals charge that the development is “disrespect” to the dead.

A Nation on Sunday visit to the mortuary last week revealed that extra dead bodies are dumped all over the place including the floor, washing tab and tables.

The problem has been there for the past four months, but there has been no immediate action by the hospital’s administration despite the problem being reported to them.

Confirming the development, both Salima District Hospital principal administrator George Ziba and district health officer Jessie Mbamba said the problem was due to damaged handles for the three cold rooms and they had no choice, but to shut them down.

They dismissed reports that it was the cold rooms per se that were damaged, arguing it was only the handles used for opening and closing.

“That’s why we have decided to close them till we get funding to repair them,” said Mbamba.

She promised that the problem would be rectified “soon as we are talking to the supplier to come and fix the handles”.

Mbamba, however, said they delayed to fix the problem due to lack of funding.

“We were not funded in June and we are almost half-way into July, still with no funding. How can we operate without the funding? We have even reached a stage of packing some of our vehicles because we cannot manage to fuel them,” she said.

Salima District Hospital gets K16 million monthly funding for other recurrent transactions (ORT) under which maintenance works are funded. The cold room handles would cost K50 000 to fix, according to Ziba.

A source at the hospital said the situation at the mortuary has been there for too long, claiming management was just not interested to fix it.

“How can they attribute it to lack of funding in June when the problem has been there for almost four months? How did they use their funding for the last three months before June?” wondered the source who opted for anonymity.

Ziba admitted the problem had been there for three months, but said they could not fix it earlier because the funding they were getting was not enough and was prioritised to other equally important areas.

Speaking in a separate interview, one of the mortuary attendants said the situation has forced them to pack several dead bodies in one cold room. The rest, he said are kept on the floor within the mortuary area.

The cold rooms were designed to accommodate one dead body at a time.

The attendant said within the week, relatives to one dead person refused to collect it, demanding an explanation first on why the body of their loved one was kept on the floor.

“We had to plead for their understanding. They were so furious and we had no proper explanation. Fortunately, they collected the body, but it was very embarrassing to us,” said the attendant.

This is the second time a mortuary has brought misery to Malawians after a malfunctioning morgue at Kamuzu Central Hospital (KCH) in Lilongwe saw dead bodies rotting, leading to a pungent smell engulfing the hospital and surrounding areas.

In the KCH case, the malfunctioning cold rooms required around K6 million to fix and they were only repaired after a media and public uproar.

While KCH management blamed the problem on inadequate funding, government faulted the hospital’s poor management.

And to demonstrate its displeasure at the embarrassment the matter caused, the Ministry of Health transferred then hospital director Dr Noor Alide from KCH.

In a related development, an ambulance shortage to cater for the district hospital and nine health centres has also hit Salima.

District hospital public relations officer William Kaunda said the problem has affected health service delivery as all 10 health facilities in the district are operating with two ambulances only.

“Some of the ambulances are being serviced. We want to have all grounded ambulances serviced and fit for operations,” said Kaunda without specifying when the vehicles would be ready for use.

Kaunda admitted the situation had created problems, especially when health centres want to refer patients to the district hospital.

Speaking in a separate interview, a driver at the district hospital, who did not want to be named, blamed hospital management for the problems.

He said the authorities take long to act on reports of problematic vehicles, forcing drivers to continue using faulty ambulances, thereby worsening their conditions.

Currently, only four out of the 17 drivers at the DHO work during any particular time due to vehicle breakdowns.

Apart from the two ambulances, there are two other pool vehicles in good working condition.

Salima has a population of over 400 000 people against nine health centres and the district hospital.

All these are supposed to be served by six ambulances, but four are currently in garages for service.