by Adeola Balogun

According to a Premium Times report, startling revelations have been made concerning the mortuary services of the Ikorodu General Hospital in Lagos.

Investigations said to have been made by the paper resulted in findings that the morticians at the hospital wash corpses “in the open with water fetched in battered old plastic buckets.”

The hospital is said to be currently using an “unrefrigerated shipping container” as a makeshift mortuary while a building constructed for that purpose lies unused because it has not been commissioned.

Premium Times reports:

When PREMIUM TIMES visited the mortuary, many of the bodies which were carelessly kept were already decomposing – fluid from the bodies kept in the upper cabinets was dripping freely on the bodies below.

One bereaved husband, who had to remove the body of his wife due to the shabby way it was handled, described seeing a body so badly decomposed that its head was almost severed from its body.

The general filth and the smell of decaying bodies that pervades the area is a bazaar for swarm of flies. Visitors also fear the mortuary portends a serious health concern to the environment as well as workers, patients and other inhabitants of the area in and around the hospital.

For instance, the hospital’s canteen and catering services department is just few metres from the makeshift mortuary.

“By the time we got there I could see them washing dead bodies in the public just by the side of the container. When the container was opened, what I saw was unbefitting for the body of a dead goat or dog,” said Olu Famuyiwa, a septuagenarian who removed the body of his wife to another mortuary after it was treated shabbily.

“When the mortuary was open, I saw about six or seven bodies already swollen, smelling and water dropping from them. Because of the tip we gave the attendants they cleared the upper shelf for my wife’s body. As we were about to leave, they asked me to buy a white linen cloth the following day to cover her body. I gave them N1000 to buy the cloth, as I wasn’t ready to come all the way from Lagos just for that purpose.

But to my surprise, embarrassment and humiliation, when I returned she was completely naked except for a piece of perforated cloth used to cover her private part. Don’t forget that they collected money from me to buy white cloth,” he continued.

He also complained that his wife wasn’t properly embalmed as her complexion quickly turned unusually dark and had started swelling. He said if he didn’t remove his wife’s body when he did, it would have further decomposed.

The last body – lying on the floor of the container – its head was almost severed from its body due to decomposition. I decided there and then to remove the body of my wife but because it was on a Saturday, we had to wait till Monday to remove her body,” he added.

Standing just outside the canteen, one can clearly see unclad bodies sprawled on the mortuary’s cabinet through its unclosed door. Water used in bathing the bodies is poured on the ground where it can easily flow into shallow wells, which are common in the area.

Ahmed Anuoluwapo, a mortician at a privately run mortuary, Omega Funeral Home, said proper disposal of water and other materials used in bathing the dead is an essential part of a mortician’s job so as not to expose inhabitants of the area around a mortuary to diseases.

“It is important that the bath water is collected and drained properly so it doesn’t find its way to public supply of water,” Mr. Anuoluwapo said. “If the water used in mortuary gets into a stream, for instance, it could lead to serious health implications.”

Bizarrely, while bodies were allowed to rot in the shipping container, a recently constructed mortuary sat about two metres away, unused.

When PREMIUM TIMES visited, some mortuary workers were sleeping on straw mats on its veranda with files of document scattered around them.

According to mortuary attendants, the building would not be used until it was commissioned by the Lagos Commissioner of Health, Olajide Idris.

Several attempts to get the Lagos State health officials to comment for this story was unsuccessful, with officials tossing our reporter around for several weeks.