Tema Central Hospital morgue left to rot after four years of completion

Four years after the construction of the new Tema General Hospital morgue, the facility is lying idle and deteriorating fast. The structure is not being used because of the absence of fridges.

It was built by the Tema Metropolitan Assembly to save the hospital from grappling with the old morgue which was in a deplorable state. During a visit to the facility by the Ghanaian Times on Wednesday, the new structure was seen to be full of spider webs and had also been taken over by reptiles.

Its ceilings had also peeled off, while the sewerage system had broken. The construction of a new morgue by the Tema Metropolitan Assembly (TMA) for the facility became necessary following a publication in the Ghanaian Times on July 8, 2011 edition about mice eating dead bodies and congestion in the old morgue. Since the assembly handed over the structure to the hospital, no activity has taken place there, a situation some of the staff of the hospital attributed to poor consultation between the assembly and the hospital.

“There is no pathology lab, no office for the pathologist, no fridges, no place for autopsy among others” a staff who pleaded anonymity disclosed. The old morgue is still being used but some staff at the facility said there were no more mice although the lack of space remained a challenge. On Wednesday, the Minister for Health, Mr Kwaku Agyeman Manu toured the hospital but could not inspect the old and new morgues due to time constraint.

The Medical Director for the Tema General Hospital, Dr Kwabena Opoku-Adusei told the minister that the delay in utilising the new structure was due to the lack of the fridges. “Initially, the plan was to get a public private partnership” but he explained that it appears no businessman wants to invest for about 10 or 15 years before recouping their investment.

The Minister for Health promised to do something about the situation. When contacted, the Tema Metropolitan Assembly’s Public Relations Officer, Mr Frank Asante, explained that the original plan was for the TMA to provide the structure for the hospital to provide the relevant equipment. However, he said when the assembly completed and handed it over, it became obvious that the hospital still needed help to secure the equipment to for the morgue.

The issue, he said was currently on the agenda of the TMA, adding that the assembly would find ways of supporting the hospital in that regard.