TEMA GENERAL HOSPITAL MORTUARY CLOSED DOWN (Back Page)

Story: Rose Hayford Darko, Tema

The Tema General Hospital Mortuary has been closed down after being declared unsuitable to receive and preserve bodies.
This followed the detection of structural defects in the buildings and the breakdown of some of its freezing compartments.
As a result, the hospital, which is the only public facility serving the eastern part of the Greater Accra Region, has called on owners of bodies already in the morgue to remove them to other hospitals.
At the time of the closure, 127 bodies were still at the morgue.
The Tema General Hospital was built as a one-block health facility in 1962 to take care of workers who were then involved in the construction of the Tema Harbour, but it has been renovated over the years to become a first-class hospital.
It has been a busy hospital because of its strategic position serving the major roads leading to Aflao and Akosombo though certain areas lack the expected growth. Almost all victims of accidents on these routes are conveyed to this hospital for attention and the dead put in the morgue.
Some people have called for a modern mortuary with modern facilities because the present one does not befit the status of the hospital and the metropolis. The hospital also has a big plot which could be used for a new project but which is overgrown with bushes.
The present building housing the mortuary has been described as too small and its location which is overseeing the labour ward could not be described as the best because of the psychological effects it could have on women in labour.
When the Daily Graphic visited the hospital, people were seen collecting their bodies to either bury or to relocate them.
When the Medical Director of the hospital, Dr (Mrs) Charity Sarpong, was contacted, she confirmed that the mortuary was closed on February 11, 2008, but denied that it was in a bad state.
She said “every facility will have to undergo renovation and servicing and, therefore, the decision to have the mortuary closed down was not anything new”.
Dr (Mrs) Sarpong disclosed that the hospital had arranged with the La Hospital to receive bodies from the Tema Hospital for preservation.
She said the renovation works would contain some variances as compared to the old one, stating that the hospital could not afford a new mortuary as people were agitating for. Dr (Mrs) Sarpong noted that the work would be funded from an internally generated fund and, therefore, was not adequate to put up a new mortuary.
Dr (Mrs) Sarpong, however, could not give any time frame within which all the bodies in the morgue should be removed to enable the hospital to start the renovation works.
She said the hospital would want to give families enough time to collect the bodies of their dead relatives and would not put pressure on any family.