Epidemic imminent as human corpses litter University of Uyo Teaching Hospital morgue

Akaiso Akaiso, Uyo

Unless something is done urgently, patients and their caretakers at the University of Uyo and people living around its host community may soonest or in the very nearest future face an outbreak of infectious diseases following abandoned human corpses littering the hospital morgue.

A source who opted to speak on condition of anonymity told the Daily Champion newspaper reporter who was in the hospital himself to assess health care, that because the morgue facilities have been fully overstressed corpses are now kept in heaps around the morgue surrounding.

According to the source, this unhealthy exposure to corpses has generated bad odour which makes it impossible for people, either staying in the hospital or coming in to make use of the facility, not to breathe fresh air as this foul odour permeates everywhere polluting the hospital environment right from the moment one steps in from the gate.

Investigation reveals that even though the problem had been there, it was exacerbated from the first tenure of the incumbent Chief Medical Director, Prof. Emem Abasi Bassey, accused by workers of insensitivity to the state of the environment of the hospital including the staff welfare.

In a press conference the CMD who said some of the corpses had been there for upward of ten to fifteen years, blamed the situation on lack of communication between relatives of the corpses and hospital management.

Another reason the Chief Medical Director adduced for the sad development is the high cost of burial rites common among Akwa Ibom and Cross River States, adding that the hospital management has concluded a plan to give mass burial to over one hundred abandoned corpses.