Makamba : the morgue of the provincial hospital has been down for almost a year

According to bereaved families and staff at the Makamba hospital (southern Burundi), the morgue at the provincial hospital has been out of order for almost a year. Some families lament that they bury bodies of their relatives in a state of advanced decomposition. However, the bill for putting a body in the morgue is set at 15,000 Burundi francs per night while the morgue is down. Residents demand the repair of the morgue as soon as possible. INFO SOS Médias Burundi

A family reports that they recently had difficulty burying remains of one of their members, four days after putting his body in the morgue of this hospital.

They explain that “we could not put his body in a coffin because he was in an advanced state of decomposition”.

Several families testify that they are obliged to move the remains of their relatives to the morgues of the hospitals of Bururi and Rutana (south and south-east of Burundi).

“It costs us a lot of money to rent hearses for a round trip, in addition to rental costs of these morgues”, they regret.

This information is confirmed by the staff of the health facility.

Hospital officials have not so far come up with a solution to this problem.

Staff members believe that “it is a shame for a provincial reference hospital which receives patients from all over the province”.

They wonder why managers of this hospital do not carry out the repair of this morgue while it is among the hospitals which require a lot of fees for putting corpses in the morgue.

Families of the deceased and the staff of the Makamba hospital are asking hierarchical health authorities to put more pressure on managers of the health facility to have this morgue repaired.

Last week, they had claimed to restore the cold room, during the visit of the minister in charge of health in the province, but the work was suspended, say disappointed witnesses.