Military Hospital keeps Venezuelan corpse for 8 years at cost of $170,000

The Public Accounts Committee (PAC) of Parliament has heard the shocking tale of how an expatriate corpse owes the 37 Military Hospital over $170,000, being the cost of medication and mortuary bills.

According to the Minister of Defence, Dr Benjamin Kunbuor, who addressed the committee on Thursday 14th April, 2016, several efforts since 2008 to locate the relatives of Claudio Alvarez Zapata have not yielded any positive results, leaving them with no option than to begin processes to bury it.

Claudio Alvarez Zapata was a Costa Rican captain of a Nigerian vessel. He got injured and was sent to the hospital and died three days later in 2008. The corpse was then deposited at the hospital’s morgue and has been kept till date.

The minister explained: “Because of some diplomatic implications, we had to keep the corpse for this length of time but we have now satisfied the statutory publication in the [newspapers]. Any moment from now, the normal Environmental Protection Agency laws for the disposal of the remains of unidentified and unclaimed bodies will be put in place.”