Bodies kept in freezers: Official

By LULU MARK
BODIES have been kept in freezers at Kiunga Hospital mortuary in North Fly, Western, due to malfunctioning of the cooling system, an official says.
The hospital acting manager Negege Kekela said yesterday that they had problems with the mortuary for some time until the cooling system stopped working in December.
He said the community was advised that the hospital was not able to keep bodies.
However, Kekela said there were people from out of the province or distant areas that requested to keep bodies in freezers at its mortuary.
“The families of the diseased brought the freezers, kept the bodies and left the freezers when they took the bodies,” he said.
“The freezers were not bought by the hospital.
“Currently, there are four freezers there and we are doing our best to manage the situation.
“People from nearby areas are urged to take their dead straight to their villages so that we don’t run out of space.” Kekela said in the past when the cooling system was working, the four compartment mortuary could hold up to 12 bodies at a time.
He said with funding support of K270,000 from the North Fly, the hospital was working towards refurbishing the mortuary.