Patients desert Moroto hospital wards over uncollected dead bodies
Moroto.
Patients at Moroto Regional Referral Hospital have deserted wards over management’s failure to collect bodies of dead patients.
Most of the patients have sought shelter under trees outside the hospital building.
Some of the patients who had discharged themselves and those who preferred sleeping in the cold dark nights outside the hospital building told Daily Monitor they couldn’t endure the smell of the dead.
"Enter inside that medical ward you will see a dead body still on the bed oozing,” said Sarah Nangiro one of the patients.
When Daily Monitor visited the facility, there were two bodies of dead patients still lying on the hospital beds in the medical wards with a foul smell.
Patrick okello, another patient admitted in one of the wards where the deadf patient was said the dead bodies had spent there four days.
"Those people died on Wednesday at night and the relatives disappeared. Since then nobody has bothered to take them away," he said.
Mr. Filbert Nyeko the hospital director said they have no space to put the dead bodies adding that the hospital mortuary was full of unclaimed dead bodies.
"We don’t have a place to keep the dead bodies because the hospital mortuary is full of unclaimed dead bodies,” he said.
He added that the Moroto municipal council that is responsible for collecting and burial of unclaimed bodies has not responded to the several letters that the hospital wrote to them.
Last week, the hospital stopped carrying out postmortem on accident victims on grounds that there was not enough space in the hospital mortuary where a doctor would stand and perform the exercise on dead bodies.
Mr. Noah Ewaru the Mayor of Moroto Municipality said they are working around the clock to collect and bury the bodies.
"As u know am just one week old since I was sworn in. I am just trying to streamline things here,”he said.
In October last year, government completed the construction of the Shs25b building at the hospital with the capaicity to accommodate more than 500 patients.
While handing over the building to the hospital management, Mr Richard Mugulusi, the arch design project manager, said the structure has 10 departments, including an outpatient section, emergency wards for causalities and recovery.
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