Anambra doctor’s strike: Pathologist decries high number of corpses in morgue

Dr Chukwudi Okani, a consultant Pathologist at Chukwuemeka Odumegwu Ojukwu University Teaching Hospital (COOUTH), Amaku, Awka has lamented the sudden increase in the number of dead bodies being deposited in the hospital mortuary.

Okani who is the Head, Department of Pathology in COOUTH on Tuesday said there was virtually no space left in the Teaching Hospital mortuary facility due to the abnormal surge.

“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 park 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 anywhere in our mortuary, this type of thing has never happened since I joined this institution,” he said.

Okani said the problem may not be unconnected to the crisis in the Anambra health sector where doctors have been on one form of industrial action or the other.

It would be recalled that Association of Resident Doctors (ARD) in the state-owned COOUTH have been on indefinite strike since May 13 while Conference of Civil Service Doctors are presently on a one-week warning strike.

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