Of Mortuaries And Abandoned Corpses

Recently, authorities of the University of Port Harcourt Teaching Hospital (UPTH), Choba in Rivers State, issued a 14-day ultimatum for owners or depositors of more than 800 unclaimed and abandoned corpses in the hospital’s mortuary to come and evacuate them for dignified burial, or else risk mass burial.
The Chief Medical Director of UPTH, Prof Henry Ugboma, who gave the notice, lamented that the corpses have been abandoned in the mortuary for upward of 10 years, and were not only a burden and over-stretching the resources of the hospital but also occupying spaces meant for fresh and identifiable corpses. He explained that the notice became imperative pursuant to the provisions of Section 33 (1) and (2) of the Birth, Death, Marriages etc Regulations 2004.
We are particularly disturbed by this development that forced UPTH management to make this public announcement, just like some other public and private hospitals and mortuaries in the country had done in recent years. It sounds un-African and amounts to gross irresponsibility for relations to abandon their dead ones in mortuary for as long as five to 10 years. This indicates that this generation is gradually losing social and cultural norms and values which demand that the living accord the dead their last respect as a mark of honour.
The Tide recalls that in 2013, the University of Calabar Teaching Hospital (UCTH) gave over 200 unclaimed corpses a mass burial after a public notice and repeated appeals to the claimants to remove them were unheeded. Calabar General Hospital did the same to over 100 corpses in 2015 for lack of space. In fact, in 2016, more than 1,000 unclaimed corpses were abandoned in public and private mortuaries in Cross River State.
By the close of 2016, no fewer than 5,530 corpses were abandoned in various hospitals/mortuaries in the South-South, South-East, South-West and North-Central. Of note was a case between the Federal Medical Centre (FMC), Yenagoa versus 121 unknown corpses in which in a motion ex-parte, counsel to FMC prayed for “an order granting leave to the FMC to cause to be buried, unclaimed, unidentified and abandoned corpses in the mortuary of the FMC, Yenagoa.”
These revelations from various hospitals across the country are not only shocking but also embarrassing. We wonder why would anyone abandon his or her dead relations in a mortuary for too long.
While we reckon that some of these cases may have been caused by unending litigations amongst family members over unresolved issues, we believe that such internal rifts should not be allowed to take their tolls on public institutions. In fact, it is completely unacceptable for anybody to turn public and private mortuaries into dumping grounds for dead bodies.
We advise, therefore, that any family member who takes a dead relative to mortuary for storage must be made to sign an irrevocable undertaking on maintenance and collection of the corpse before leaving the mortuary premises.
We also implore security agencies and first respondents to murder and accident cases to always do the needful by completing legally required forms/registration formalities, with genuine contact details so that mortuary staff can reach them when the need arises.
Meanwhile, it is imperative for the police to be more diligent and thorough in their investigations of murder and accident cases so as to provide families of the dead and hospital/mortuary managers with good opportunity to interface and interact on best ways to store and bury corpses deposited in morgues.
While we agree that it is not the duty of government to compel owners of corpses to bury their dead ones, we think that it is important for government to set timelines for the living to accord the dead their rights to eternal rest. This, the government can do through a legislation that gives the dead legal rights to proper burial within a specific time frame. This will help check the dumping of corpses in mortuaries for years, give room for new ones and save the hospitals and depositors of dead bodies unnecessary extra cost.