Mortuary workers threaten strike

• Posted on January 16, 2015January 16, 2015
• by Nana Kwesi Coomson
• Comment

The Tema General Hospital mortuary workers are considering embarking on an industrial strike over poor conditions of service.

Credible information gathered by Weekend Finder indicates that working conditions are so terrible that sometimes the same hand gloves have to be used for several days before new ones are provided them.

The 60-year-old Tema morgue has over the years been in the news as a haven for rodents such as rats, which often invade the facility through weak holes to gnaw parts of dead bodies.

Some of the workers, who pleaded anonymity, complained bitterly about the invasion of rats in the morgue.

For many years now, the mortuary has not had functioning fridges for the preservation of dead bodies, thus the workers have to wash and embalm the bodies for preservation.

After the embalmment, the dead bodies are overly packed on a high-rise concrete platform and a huge rusty malfunctioning fridge with metallic stretchers.

Because of the preservation method, the indoor air of the mortuary is always highly concentrated with formaldehyde (formalin), which poses a health risk to the workers, who do not have nose masks for protection inside the facility.

Some of the rodents, the worker said, find their way into the rusty, malfunctioning fridge to feed on dead bodies.

Since 2011, the workers said they have been looking forward to the completion of an ultra-modern mortuary facility promised them by the Tema Metropolitan Assembly (TMA); a promise which is yet to be fulfilled.

The TGH administration has, since the TMA’s promise, decided not to sink any cash into buying fridges and rehabilitating the dilapidating 60-year-old mortuary,even though the mortuary generates a lot of revenue for the TGH.

The TMA’s ultra-modern mortuary facility was started three years ago but has since been abandoned for lack of funds, and the TGH mortuary workers say they will one day stage a demonstration against the poor conditions of work and salary.

-Inusa MUSAH