Makumbi Hospital in Goromonzi district is facing a critical shortage of mortuary space.
Hospital administrator Evelyn Runodada revealed this before the Parliamentary Portfolio Committee on Health and Child Care during its visit to the hospital.
“Our mortuary can only accommodate three bodies. For us the mortuary is a challenge usually we have more than that and we double the bodies per tray and sometimes put them down on the floor,” Runodada said.
“Sometimes we communicate with relatives and tell them our situation so that they collect the corpse.”
Runodada said the mortuary was overwhelmed.
“For those bodies that are brought in by the police, sometimes it takes time before they are collected,” she said.
“At times we ask the police to take the bodies to Parirenyatwa, unfortunately sometimes it faces the same challenge of space.”
“At district level, this is the only mortuary we have so we don’t have anywhere to refer our bodies to and we cannot ask someone to stay with a corpse.”
Runodada said they had been lobbying for funds to construct a mortuary without success.