AN UNDISCLOSED number of bodies have reached a deplorable state of decomposition at the Tsholotsho District Hospital mortuary following the breakdown of the morgue’s compressor leaving the refrigerators not functioning a fortnight ago, Sunday News can reveal.
This paper’s news crew that was in the area on Thursday witnessed fully-grown maggots rolling out of the morgue through door holes.
The already “sorry situation’ is reported to have been exacerbated by unscheduled power load shedding by Zesa over a prolonged period of time which saw the bodies turning bad before relatives collected them.
There was a terrible stench emanating from the mortuary and green flies were in droves and the unbearable hot weather condition further exacerbated this unfortunate state of affairs.
Tsholotsho centre residents and villagers are not happy with this development and are calling upon relevant authorities to move in swiftly to avert a health catastrophe at the area.
The District Medical officer (DMO), Dr Claudius Verenga said the sorry sight was a result of a non-functioning morgue’s compressor and the rampant load shedding by the power utility.
“The compressor has been giving problems for the past week or so and there is also the issue of load shedding as well, as electricity goes for more than two days at times.
But just like meat goes bad when it is in a non functioning fridge and emits a bad smell so do the bodies at the mortuary that is the situation we can relate to the state of the mortuary,” said Dr Verenga.
The DMO further explained that the situation was due to the excessive shortage of staff at the mortuary as they were also failing to release bodies, as post mortems were not being done.
The Minister of Health and Child Welfare, Dr David Parirenyatwa and his Deputy, Dr Edwin Muguti could not be reached on their phones late yesterday.
Several mortuaries in the country have been facing similar or worse situations including overloading of bodies like at the Gweru General Hospital. The morgue, which only had a capacity to accommodate 24 bodies at a time, was reportedly holding over 100 bodies.
Private mortuaries are very expensive and relatives of the deceased people usually have no choice, but to leave their relatives to rot and those who can afford move them to other hospitals where the mortuaries are working.
Zimbabwe’s health delivery system suffered a major knock because of the illegal economic sanctions imposed on the country by the west. There are no drugs in hospitals and doctors and nurses are leaving the country in droves to greener pastures as the over stretched Government cannot afford to pay them in hard currency.
Several Government schemes have been put in place to cushion senior civil servants but the efforts go down the drain due to hyperinflationary environment existing in the country. The people living with HIV and AIDS are the most affected as the cost of the life serving Anti Retroviral Drugs are even beyond the people in the middle class level.
Remember this......
0 comments:
Post a Comment