Corpse [Photo Credit: NBC News]
- In some cases vital body parts are removed from dead bodies in the mortuary while corpses out rightly disappear
- Sharp practices in mortuary fee payments are common
By Hassan John
Forty-seven-year old Bayero Abdul who lives in Masaka, a suburb in Karu Local Government Area of Nigeria’s Nasarawa State went to cast his vote during the presidential and National Assembly elections on February 25, 2023. He never knew what fate awaited him that day.
Masaka is a highly densely populated suburb that accommodates middle level workers and businessmen who work in the Federal Capital Territory. Under normal situations, Masaka is just 45 minutes’ drive to Abuja city centre. Sometimes, it could take more than 2 hours for a commuter to scale through the heavy traffic that usually characterizes the road leading to Abuja’s city centre.
A few minutes past 3pm that fateful day, the daughter of a widow who lives close to Abdul’s house came shouting and calling for help that her mother had slumped.
Luckily Abdul had fuel in his car. He rushed out and picked the widow struggling to find a hospital where she could be revived. He went to two private hospitals but all referred him to bigger government-owned facility.
After getting the final referral at the Medical Centre, Mararaba, Abdul rushed the widow who has been unconscious to Federal Medical Centre (FMC), Keffi.
Arriving at the FMC at few minutes to 7pm, after close examination and efforts by the doctor on call at the emergency unit, he came with the bad news that the widow could not be revived.
According to Abdul, it was at that stage that the drama of getting a mortuary space for the late widow started.
“After the necessary processes and payments were concluded, the doctor gave me the pass to take the body to the mortuary. Before this stage, I had already made all payment through the central payment point in the hospital.
“On getting to the mortuary, the attendant (names withheld) told us to pay 21,000 naira for the embalmment of the body and that we are going to pay 1000 naira for each day the copse will remain in the mortuary.
“We told him to give us paper so that we can go and pay in the central payment point in the hospital. He refused, insisting that we have to pay cash. We told him, we don’t have cash with us. He insisted that we have to source for cash anywhere we can and give him. All pleas landed on deaf ears.
“He directed us to go to some plazas in the Keffi City centre to look for cash. We went to three different plazas in different locations of the city, unfortunately because it was Election Day, the plazas did not open for business.”
Abdul continued: “We went back to the mortuary attendant and told him the places we went but could not raise cash. He insisted that if there is no cash, we should carry the late woman out of the place.
“At that point, we knew that we were in trouble.”
He explained that he took a step further to go to the SERVICOM unit to seek for their intervention.
Abdul said he was, however, shocked when after few calls, the officer on duty at the SERVICOM centre told him to go and look for cash and pay the mortuary attendant.
“This was around 10 pm. We went back to the mortuary attendant to find a solution to stress we were being subjected to. When we met him, he insisted that we must give him cash, even if it is half of the 21, 000 naira.
“Since I don’t have cash on me, the daughters of the late widow had to resort to begging on the street for assistance. Fortunately for them, the got N5000. We then went and appealed to him to accept and allow us deposit the dead body. He grudgingly did.
“He, however, gave the condition that I have to bring the remaining balance (cash) before I can pick the corpse for burial.
“The whole drama ended around 11pm and we then found our way back to Masaka that night.”
However, in an effort to understand how other mortuaries operate in the country, our Correspondent, launched an investigation to General Hospital, Keffi.
The findings at the General Hospital were almost similar to that of the Federal Medical Center. The only difference was only that there was no corpse to present before the mortuary attendant to see his full reaction.
When our correspondent approached the attendant at the General Hospital pretending that he has a corpse to deposit, the first question was “where is the doctor’s paper.”
Our Correspondent, however, asked him how much does it cost to embalm a copse and how much do they charge per day when a copse is deposited in their mortuary.
“I have to see the corpse first. If the person is fat, the cost will be higher than lean person. But we don’t collect transfer here.”
Responding to a question on why they don’t collect transfer, the mortuary attendant said: “We don’t have the chemicals we need here. We go outside the hospital to buy chemicals; therefore, we must pay them with cash.”
However, at Maitama General Hospital, Abuja, the situation is different as our investigation revealed that every payment is made at the central pay point in the hospital.
At the mortuary, the attendant on duty only directed our correspondent to get the doctor’s report confirming that the patient is dead, then “we will give you a slip to go to the cashier and pay.
“I can’t tell you how much you are paying now until I see the doctor’s note. That will determine what your payment will be. Go to the doctor that confirmed the patient is dead then bring his report to me,” he said.
Speaking to our Correspondent, a senior pathologist at the University of Abuja Teaching Hospital (AUTH), Gwagwalada, disclosed that mortuary management in hospitals depend on the decision of the management.
The pathologist who pleaded not to be named because “I work for government and not in the position to speak,” said that the authorities need to put their eyes on the mortuary because “sometimes, some funny things happen there.”
He, however, said that even though the payment for depositing dead bodies at the AUTH is well organized, “that does not mean there are no sharp practices that sometimes happen there.
“I think it is important for hospital management to put their searchlight on what happens in their mortuaries because we have heard cases were some vital body parts are being removed from dead bodies in the mortuary.
“We have also seen situations were, in some hospitals, dead bodies disappear and no one knows how they disappeared.
“Ideally, I don’t think it is proper for someone who loses his beloved one should be allowed to suffer more pains before he or she could deposit the body in the mortuary.
“Payment for the deposition of dead bodies in mortuaries should be made easy with no stress. All chemicals needed for the embalmment and other things should be provided centrally by the hospital management to prevent room for sharp practices.”
