The morgue which was built six years ago by the government in collaboration with the Caribbean Development Bank and the Canadian International Development Agency has no staff, electricity or cold storage facilities. The structure cost some $9.6 million to construct.
Brenda Hutson who has been residing in the North West District for more than 20 years told Stabroek News that earlier this year her brother died and she and her relatives endured a horrible experience.
She recalled that her brother died at the Port Kaituma Hospital around 10:30 pm on July 1 and they were instructed to take the body to the morgue.
The woman pointed out that the morgue which is located across the road from the hospital has no electricity and relatives inquired if they could use candles to guide them but were told that they could not.
According to Hutson they subsequently asked the hospital staff if they had to carry the body over to that “dark, dark place, that hour in de night”. The doctor who was on duty, she recalled decided to keep the body in the hospital until six the next morning.
Hutson said that the following morning they removed the body and placed it in a box in the mortuary. She said that that morning they had to buy $4000 worth in ice to place on the body and then $2000 more later in the day. Relatives had to do this for six more days so as to facilitate the arrival of relatives living outside the area.
Formalin also had to be bought to put on the body.
“It was terrible terrible. It wasn’t a nice experience at all and this was my first time having a dead”, she said, adding that she had often heard people talking about the horrible experience. She said that this is something that has been happening for years and it should come to an end.
She said that buying ice to just keep the remains is an additional expense and there are some residents who cannot afford it. She said in her case, a relative couldn’t go every day to put ice on the body so they had to pay someone to do it.
That she said was an additional expense for her and her relatives. “We had to keep the body because relatives were coming from far. It was real hard though and it wasn’t nice at all”, she stressed.
The woman said that whenever those in authority are asked about the state of the morgue “they never have answers. This is very unfair”.
Hutson said that recently the body of a murder victim that was being stored at the defunct facility started to decompose. She said that the stench affected residents living nearby.
She added that residents source their electricity from stand-by generators. She said that Guyana Power and Light workers several months ago planted poles and ran some wiring but no connections were made. She said that she had heard nothing more of the project.
She added that residents need another source of electricity because it takes a lot of fuel to keep the generators running.
“We really glad if we could get things better. We need assistance from somewhere to get this better. It really rough”, she said adding that there needs to be electricity and equipment at the morgue.
She said that there has been little development in the area since she started living there. “Is just people coming that’s all”, she said.
Upset residents had told Stabroek News in August this year that the situation is unacceptable but when contacted Regional Chairman Fermin Singh had pointed out that representation is being made to have the cost to purchase freezers included in the next budget.
In acknowledging that there is no cold storage at the morgue, he had said that this is the first time such representations are being made.
Photographs provided to this newspaper recently, showed just how run-down the morgue is. Some of the grass is taller than the building and it is often residents who take up the task of weeding the compound.
The interior walls are badly cracked and the washroom is in a messy state.
