View of Malakal Teaching Hospital -Photo courtesy.

The National Minister of Health has labeled as untrue reports that lack of mortuaries at Malakal Teaching Hospital in Upper Nile State has forced health workers to keep dead bodies with inpatients in the same wards.

Early this week, a senior official in the state hospital said they have no choice but to keep dead bodies in the same room with inpatients after the only mortuary was destroyed during the civil war.

Dr Nyango Adwok who is the acting Director General of the hospital said the health facility receives about 100 outpatients a day and admits about 20 patients daily who get to be mixed up with dead bodies.

But in an interview with Eye Radio Wednesday, Minister Yolanda Awel Deng refuted the claims adding that it is against the ethical perspective of the health sector.

“So what they are saying is that dead bodies and patients are being mixed is not true. Do you know why I am saying that? Because from a health perspective, we have respect for the dead bodies and the living,” Dr. Awel told Eye Radio.

She also said there are indeed separate rooms designated for corpses before being taken for burial.
“There is no way you would mix the two. We have a room that is allocated for dead bodies as they wait to be buried. It is not a mortuary but it is a room.”

As we know, our resources are very limited, even here in Juba, the two mortuaries we have are overwhelmed because the population is growing and the facilities and infrastructures are the same ones we had before independence,” Yolanda defended.

Asked about the mortuary in Juba, the Minister admitted that the facility at Juba teaching hospital is overwhelmed due to a limited space and the growing population in the city.

The challenge, according to Yolanda, will be addressed upon the completion of the ongoing construction of another mortuary adjacent to the UN house along Yei road.

“In Juba, we are building a big mortuary along Yei road near UNMISS around the POC. We are trying our level best to build the best mortuary with proper supply of electricity for fridges to keep the dead bodies.”

Awel also said plans are underway to construct mortuaries at the referral hospitals of Malakal, Wau and Kiir Mayardit Maternal Hospital.

In March this year, Minister Yolanda Awel was appointed as a successor to Elizabeth Achuei Yol who served during the pandemic.