Korle Bu to bury unclaimed, unidentified bodies in 2 weeks

• Posted on April 24, 2020April 24, 2020
• by Nana Kwesi Coomson
• Comment

The Korle Bu Teaching Hospital will organise a mass burial of all unknown and unclaimed bodies within the next two weeks.

The Hospital served this notice in a statement, explaining that the move is to “decongest the Hospital’s mortuary which is currently full beyond its carrying capacity.”

Some of the bodies, according to the Hospital have been in the morgue “for varying periods ranging from one to three years”, a situation it says has contributed to the “exhaustion of the morgue’s capacity.”

The Hospital has thus urged families who have the bodies of their relatives at the hospital’s morgue to come for them.

A few weeks ago, the Ghana Police Hospital served a similar notice.

The ban on public gatherings including funerals has led to many people deferring burial dates of their loved ones although there is an exemption granted to those who wish to hold private buries with 25 or fewer people in attendance.

Some families say they would rather wait until the COVID-19-induced ban is lifted for them to organize public funeral services and burial with hundreds of people in attendance.

The has resulted in congestion in many mortuaries in public hospitals.

Mortuaries such as the one at Korle Bu and Pantang have lamented the inability to keep receiving dead bodies due to a failure by families to claim the bodies of their deceased for private burials.

120 unidentified bodies to be buried en mass

In March, the police said it was going to bury 120 bodies en mass due to the failure of some families to come and collect them.

It said the exercise was “routine” and aimed at decongesting its mortuary.

“These unidentified and unclaimed bodies are made up of mostly paupers, unknown former patients, abandoned bodies, and unidentified accident and crime victims,” the police said.

-Citinews