Dead Bodies Overdue For Removal

More than 300 dead bodies lie at the Port Moresby General Hospital’s mortuary that need immediate removal by the relatives.

PMGH Management raised concern through a media conference held at the hospital morgue yesterday. 

Director for Curative Health, Dr Kone Sobi addressed the media on the concern of the mortuary capacity. 
“There are currently in excess of 300 bodies. Lots of bodies have been here for several months, largely because relatives are not coming to pick up their loved ones (deceased) and so part of this campaign would be encouraging those relatives to come and pick their loved ones and offer them a decent burial,” he said

Some of the bodies have been in the morgue since March 2021 and now with the emergence of COVID-19 and related deaths it is of grave concern.

“From about the 1st of this month to Monday 18th we had close to 70 deaths and the number is growing, that’s an average of almost five-six deaths of COVID-19 cases alone per day,” Dr Sobi continued.

He said very few of the COVID-19 deceased were either taken to the funeral home for those who can afford it or straight home for burial. Dr Sobi said there are about 50 COVID bodies now in the morgue, which is putting more pressure from the existing number of bodies that are now in the morgue.

“As you can see behind the main morgue facility was built by the JICA assistance to PNG almost 30 years ago to cater for 60 bodies, right now we have about 300 bodies. Over the years we have been adding shipping refrigerated containers and as you can see there are about 5 shipping containers, four 20 ft and 1 40 ft.”

Officer-in-Charge of the Morgue services, Albert Tote explained that due to not enough space, bodies are left in the layout area since last week.

“There’s little space like 130 spaces or something like that. We are overcrowding the bodies. At the moment since last week Sunday it was over crowded so we left the bodies at the layout and some are still in the layout now,” Mr Tote said. 

The hospital morgue is full and bodies of those dying from COVID-19 disease are lying with those who are dying from other causes. The hospital management is concerned and they are asking relatives to come forward immediately and claim their bodies. 

According to the hospital management a mass burial is likely to take place anytime soon.

Author: 
Frieda Kana