Dormaa Presby Hospital denies keeping corpses in Ward

The Dormaa Presbyterian Hospital, has denied allegations and rumours that it unduly kept corpses lying in Wards, for relatively longer periods, when they were supposed to have been conveyed to the hospital mortuary after patients had passed away.

Doctor Zakpalah Dery Emmanuel, Acting Medical Administrator of the Hospital, dismissed the allegations as “untrue,” explaining that dead bodies were immediately sent to the mortuary as soon as the necessary checks were done after a doctor’s confirmation of the death.

“Whenever one dies, the doctor has to confirm the death. The nurses have to do ‘last office’ before the mortuary man comes to take the body and this takes some minutes and not hours. There’s no time limit for conveying dead bodies to the morgue. It depends on the exigencies of the situation. For instance, if the mortuary man who is supposed to come for the body is at the bank, you expect the person to finish whatever business he’s transacting at the bank before he comes to collect the corpse,” he stated.

Dr Dery was speaking in an interview with the Ghana News Agency (GNA) in Dormaa-Ahenkro, in reaction to concerns raised by Mr. Kofi Beneabesi, Presiding Member of the Dormaa Central Municipality, during last the last general meeting of the Assembly, that there were reports suggesting that dead bodies were inexplicably left lying at the Wards, provoking patients to desert and vacate them.

The Acting Medical Administrator, further noted that keeping patients with cold or minor cases out of the emergency ward, which was restricted for only emergency cases, appeared a major challenge to the hospital.

He expressed worry that despite persistent education to inform people that the outpatient department was restricted for patients with minor cases, many patients with cold cases still called in at the emergency ward, instead of the Out Patient Department(OPD) for treatment, a situation he described as “very worrying and difficult to control.”

“We recognize the problem, but we see it as an attitude. When they come at night, some from far away places, you can’t sack or turn them away, and you must treat them sometimes at the expense of patients with emergency cases.

Otherwise they will go and if something happens to them the hospital will be blamed. They think the treatment at the emergency ward are expedited.

If the people will comply not to visit the emergency wards with cold cases, we will be glad,” he noted.