The University of Nigeria Teaching Hospital (UNTH), Enugu, has concluded plans to carry out mass burial for the 82 corpses that were dumped at the hospital by the police. The hospital authorities have also expressed dismay at the action of the police, saying that the situation is compelling them to compromise standards.
Speaking in an interview with THISDAY at the hospital premises located along Ituku-Ozalla in Enugu, the Chief Medical Director, Dr Anthony Mbah, expressed worry at the rate at which police officers dump corpses at the hospital. He stressed that if nothing was urgently done, both workers, patients and visitors to the hospital might flee the place as a result of the stench from the hospital mortuary. The police command in the state has however denied knowledge of the situation in the hospital, stating that the hospital management was yet to communicate it on the development, while denying that some of the corpses were victims of extra-judicial killings by the police.
Mbah who spoke through the Head of Public Relations, Mr. Cyril Keneze, noted that all efforts to get the relevant authorities to find lasting solution to the situation which had become worrisome had fallen on deaf ears, as the police in the state were yet to respond to the petitions already forwarded to them. He disclosed that the hospital spends close to N144 million weekly on diesel to run the five gigantic generators in its possession and as such is not ready to cough out additional funds for the disposal of the corpses. “We are under obligation to co-operate with the police by accepting the corpses they bring to the hospital. But the problem now is that the number of corpses that are dumped here is beginning to adversely affect the capacity of our morgue. To adequately keep these corpses without jeopardising the chances of other corpses whose causes of deaths are natural has indeed become a problem,” he explained.
He disclosed that the capacity for corpses that could be refrigerated in the hospital mortuary is 60, while those that are embalmed and kept without refrigeration is put at 100. He added that with a total of 82 corpses from the police, the hospital could no longer cope, more so when it is required to admit others that come from the hospital wards and in some cases from road accidents. “Nobody is coming to claim these corpses; even the police will just dump them and leave without caring of its implication to the hospital. To dispose them requires huge amount of money, that’s why we keep more than required in the hospital morgue. Because of the long delay in carting them away, some of them decay and the odour that comes from there is quite unpleasant,” Keneze stated. On what could be the cause of the deaths of the victims, the hospital said it was not duty bound to ascertain the reason for death, insisting that the police remained a legitimate authority to convey corpses to the hospital. He however stated that from the record usually provided by police officers who convey such corpses to the hospital, it was clear that most of them were armed robbers and hoodlums who engage the police in shoot-outs, while some others usually brought by officials of the Federal Road Safety Commission (FRSC) were people who lost their lives in road accidents.
Efforts to get into the hospital mortuary to get pictures of the 84 corpses due to be buried soon were initially rebuffed by the mortuary attendants who insisted on getting a formal approval letter from the management. But when THISDAY was finally allowed entry after several hours of pleading, the stench from the place made it impossible to go in. The State Police Commissioner, Mohammed Zarewa, could not be reached to react to the development at the hospital. But the command’s Public Relations Officer, ASP Ebere Amarizu, said they were yet to recieve any formal complaint from the hospital authorities. He however denied the allegations that most of the corpses were victims of police extra-judicial killings as alleged in a BBC report.