Workers of Mortuary at post to prevent disease

Tema, June 09, GNA -- Workers of the Tema General Hospital mortuary are still receiving dead bodies in order to prevent an outbreak of disease due to the strike of paramedics and junior doctors. Mr Peter Anwege, Officer in- charge of the morgue told the Ghana News Agency who visited the hospital to assess the situation that, even though all the paramedics of the hospital are on strike, they were at post because none of the Private hospitals in Tema has a morgue to cater for the dead.
"If we do not work, it means there would be an outbreak of disease as people would have no place to preserve their dead bodies because its only the public hospitals that have a mortuary department", he added. Meanwhile the hospital's Out Patients Department and pharmacy, among others, were all closed to the general public and emergencies are being referred to other private hospitals at the time of the visit. Even though both junior doctors and paramedics of the hospitals are not working, one nurse was seen attending to three patients at the main male ward.
The situation at the Tema Polyclinic (TPC) was not different from that of the TGH as its laboratory, pharmacy and other departments were closed with a few patients who were there to either receive treatment or for laboratory test looking around in disappointment.
Dr Obadiah Crabbe, Principal Medical Officer of TPC said even though the clinic has no junior doctors, the strike of the paramedics has halted the activities of the clinic.
He said even though the paramedics were not at post, most of the doctors and head of departments have reported to work, adding that, the clinic has been referring its emergency cases to the Narh Bita Hospital and the Port Clinic since the strike started.