Federal Medical Centre Plans Mass Burial For Unclaimed Corpses

The Federal Medical Centre, Abuja has revealed plans to conduct a mass burial for eight unclaimed corpses that have been at the hospital’s mortuary for over two years.

According to the centre, the unclaimed corpses have caused congestion in its mortuary, hence plans to conduct a mass burial for them.

Naija News reports that the hospital’s management who disclosed this to the Punch said the hospital has gotten a court order, police extract and cemetery permission to bury the corpses.

According to the Head of Clinical Services, Dr Joseph Eziechila, a corpse that stays in a morgue for more than eighteen months without being claimed by anyone is identified as an unclaimed body.

Eziechila explained the decision was made after fruitless efforts by the hospital to announce to the public if relatives might come to claim them, adding that the management had placed adverts on radio and newspaper, but nothing yielded.

He submitted that even though they plan a mass burial for them, a date hasn’t been fixed because medical students can still apply for them, noting that the bodies are still ok if any university wants to apply for them.

Eziechila stated that “In every institution, there are policies. Once a corpse stays in a morgue for more than eighteen months and no person has come to claim the body, you tag them as unclaimed bodies. In the process of trying to dispose of the corpses, you get a court order and we did that, we got the court authorisation, police extract, and you even go to the cemetery to get clearance so that you can dispose of the bodies. We did newspaper publications as well. We’ve done all the processes, you don’t have to bridge the process.

“We have eight corpses, they are all adults. They’re blocking the space, they’re in the morgue for two years and nobody to come and claim the bodies. We have made adverts, and radio announcements and nobody is coming to claim them, we can’t leave it like that.”

“There is no space unless you pile them like sardines. Every hospital has different sizes of their morgue.

“We plan mass burial for them though we have not fixed the time for that yet. We may not have medical students demanding it.

“It costs a lot to maintain and power the morgue. If some universities apply, and the bodies are still okay, we will give to them, that is where they get cadavers to learn,”  he added.