Rate of death now higher than burial so no more space in our mortuary — Pathologist

Dr. Chukwudi Okani, a Consultant Pathologist at Chukwuemeka Odumegwu Ojukwu University Teaching Hospital, Amaku, Awka, Anambra State, has lamented the sudden increase in the number dead bodies being deposited in the hospital’s mortuary.
Okani, who is the Head Department of Pathology in COOUTH, told the News Agency of Nigeria on Tuesday in Awka that there was virtually no vacancy in the Teaching Hospital’s mortuary due to the abnormal surge.
He said: “Over the last two months, I have noticed an increase in the rate and number of deaths.
“Many dead bodies are being brought to the mortuary.
“In our mortuary now, there are no spaces left that we can pack dead people.
“Under normal circumstance, the rate at which people deposit dead bodies in the hospital is equal to the rate at which they take them for burial but now the rate at which bodies are being deposited in the mortuary far surpasses the rate of claims.
“Everything is happening within a short time.
“Just these periods that doctors went on strike.
“They now smuggle bodies in unusual places and that means that there is no vacancy any where in our mortuary.
“This type of thing has never happened since I joined this institution.”
Okani said the problem might not be unconnected to the crisis in the Anambra State health sector where doctors had been embarking on one form of industrial action or the other.
NAN reports that the Association of Resident Doctors in the state-owned COOUTH have been on indefinite strike since May 13, while the Conference of Civil Service Doctors are presently on a week warning strike.
The Medical and Dental Consultants Association of Nigeria recently ended its one week warning strike and has threatened to commence indefinite shutdown before the end of June.
The consultant urged the Anambra State Government to take urgent steps to resolve the impasse with doctors and stem the ugly tide as autopsies he performed on some of the dead bodies showed that some of them died of preventable deaths.
Okani described the health sector as “very delicate” and that government should not allow breakdown at a point in the service delivery chain, adding that it often resulted in catastrophic end.
He said: “Patients don’t just need specialists’ care to be alive.
“Everybody is important in the hospital: the Consultants, the Resident Doctors, even the House Officers, the Pharmacist, Laboratory Scientists are all equally important.
“Whenever there is a breakdown of services in the healthcare service chain, there is always a catastrophic outcome.
“So now that the doctors who are the main people why patients come to hospital are embarking on strike you see so much deaths.
“Like here in COOUTH, some of the patients were already recovering before the Resident Doctors went on strike, but as they stopped receiving treatment due to the strike, some of them deteriorated and died.
“The space we reserved for autopsy has been taken over by dead bodies.
“Morticians are now moving dead bodies to the place we don’t normally keep dead bodies because of no space and that is why I am worried.
“As a Pathologist, the few bodies I did autopsy on showed some of them died preventable deaths.
“There are deaths that are preventable and I think the government and all stakeholders have to act to correct the situation.”
The medical expert advised people to endeavour to bury their dead relatives as soon as possible rather than keeping them in the mortuary for a long time on the excuse of bad economy.
Okani said: “My advice is that people should not leave the dead bodies of their loved so long a time in the mortuary.
“Inasmuch as there is harsh economic situation, they should try as much as they can to take these bodies and bury them on time.
“Doctors should not be allowed to go on strike for any reason.
“Government should listen to them, do something and solve the problem.
“Doctors are not heady.
“By virtue of their training, they are very obedient, loyal and respectful.
“They are not given to loggerhead and for them to say that the last option available to them is strike, then there must a real problem.”
NAN.