Patients share wards with dead bodies at Sissala East Municipal Hospital
The Sissala East Municipal Director of Health Services, Clifford Veng, has disclosed that the lack of a mortuary at the Sissala East Municipal Hospital has resulted in patients sharing wards with corpses.
He stated that the situation forces authorities to keep corpses in undesignated places at the facility, sometimes in the same wards as patients and staff.
Mr Veng disclosed this during the 2023 health performance conference of the Sissala East Municipality in Tumu.
“When death occurs at the municipal hospital, the dead are supposed to be separated from the living immediately, but in the case of our municipality, the situation is different.
“Corpses stay over 24 hours in undesignated areas pending the time relatives will come for them,” he revealed.
He added, “When there is a death, some families need to preserve the deceased for some time to allow them to prepare adequately for the funeral rites, hence the need for mortuary services with its benefits in the municipality.”
The 2023 Sissala East Municipal Health Sector performance review was held on the theme, ‘Of fostering collaboration: engaging stakeholders in reducing maternal and perinatal mortalities through a resilient healthcare system.’
Mr Veng commended health workers and their stakeholders for the progress made in delivering quality service to the people, enumerating some successes.
The Sissala East Municipal Director of Health Services opened up on the activities they undertook during the year under review.
He said they conducted breast screening for adolescent girls in schools for early detection and management of cancer.
According to him, they also collected data to enumerate foreign migrants whose presence is increasing by the day, which affects resource allocation, and their influx tends to affect the indicators that they have tirelessly worked to achieve over the years.
Mr Veng also added that the municipal hospital X-ray machine was obsolete and, as a result, is now malfunctioning, thereby producing poor-quality imaging.
He mentioned the inadequate laboratory services for the people in Sissala East.
The municipality has only three laboratories to care for the hospital, eight health centres, a polyclinic and 52 Community-based Health Planning and Services (CHPS).
He pleaded for more laboratories to be established in the municipality.