Mortuary attendants at the Bomadi General Hospital, in Bomadi Local Government Area, Delta State, stacked corpses on improvised wooden platforms after embalmment and leave them there for several days even when it rained.
This unorthodox arrangement is due to insufficient space to preserve the corpses in the hospital’s overflowing mortuary.
Patients at the hospital have expressed disgust at the dilapidated condition of the health-care facility plagued by rats and mosquitoes, which has increased the fear of Lassa fever and Zika virus in the riverside community.
According to Niger Delta Voice, when they visited the morgue, reporters saw embalmed corpses covered with blankets and abandoned outside.
Workers, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said they were under pressure on daily basis because of the challenges faced by patients while the Doctors on duty refused to make any comment in regard to the situation.
A lawyer and human rights activist, E.U Opukiri, whose wife was on admission, narrated his experience:
“I am a barrister of nine years in the bar, I came to this hospital because of the health of my wife and my experiences here in these two days are pathetic. There was no electricity and water in the hospital premises, a state government hospital for that matter. Corpses stacked outside the morgue “In the night when the rechargeable lamp we were using went off, rats came out in large numbers and spread everywhere. Some of them came specifically for the bread I bought for my wife, dragging it with me.
“Out of fear, I took the bread and made it a pillow at the head-side of the bed. I was, however, uncomfortable with it because of its shape and so I decided to put it in a cupboard-like shelf there. When I opened the shelf, I saw that it was a haven for rats. There were so many rats that I became afraid being aware of the prevalent Lassa fever caused by rats. We could not sleep at night these two days we were there,” he said.
Opukiri said:
“Again, the hospital morgue too is an eye sore; our revered and deceased parents are dried right outside in the sun like Bonga fish, which is right there (pointing to the morgue). Therefore, I want government to intervene in this health facility immediately. “As a matter of fact, I can categorically tell you that there is no water in this hospital. All the water facilities are dilapidated, which you can see for yourself. I had to go out of the hospital’s premises in the night to the riverside to fetch water for my wife.”
Leader of Bomadi Legislative Assembly, Hon Bekes Tonprebofa, who was a patient in the hospital, last year, complained about the state of the facilities and appealed to the state government to do the needful in the hospital.
