King Fahad morgue on deathbed, no cold storage
In the main postmortem room, a jerrycan half filled with formalin, rusty knives and tools, and filthy clothes of dead men and women are piled in a corner.
Two cold storage rooms don’t function. In one is an unidentified body — unclaimed for two years — that is just a skeleton. No effort has been made to dispose of it properly.
This is the frightening state of the morgue at Lamu’s King Fahad Referral Hospital at a time Kenya is experiencing a surge in Covid-19 cases and deaths.
Lamu has reported only one death at the hospital on July 8 and six other cases.
The hospital uses the Mpeketoni Subcounty Hospital morgue that only accommodates 12 bodies. There, the cold storage is said to frequently break down but the administrator says it’s operational and can handle current needs.
The county was allocated more than Sh169 million to improve healthcare in the 2019-20 budget.
That’s not apparent at the morgue where critics say negligence appears to be an understatement.
A senior county health official said previous municipal and county administrations have not rehabilitated or improved morgue facilities.
Lamu has a predominantly Muslim population that buries its dead almost immediately, and the aim is burial within 24 hours. Hence, a big investment in improving the morgue has not been perceived as urgent. Three years into its term, the current administration appears to share that view.
“It is true the morgue facility at King Fahad, especially the cold storage rooms, are not working at Level 5 standards, Lamu Health executive Dr Anne Gathoni said.
Currently the Mpeketoni Subcounty Referral Hospital provides support, she said.
Lamu residents have expressed concern, including on social media, about the urgent needs to improve health facilities.
A visit to the King Fahad Referral Hospital’s morgue revealed the decrepit state of the cold storage units that have not been used for a long time. One is used to store formalin.
Locked in the other storage unit is that skeleton.
Health ministry guidelines provide for safe disposal of the bodies of Covid-19 victims to prevent the spread of the virus by those handling the body.
“The environment around the morgue is not conducive to carrying out a proper postmortem,” Solomon Ndungu, an autopsy assistant said.
He said the county is “flying blind” in disposing of Covid-19 bodies, though only one case has been reported at the hospital. Others probably die at home.
Ndungu said, however, he and other staff dealing directly with Covid-19 have been trained but lack adequate personal protective equipment.
Preventing spread beyond the postmortem area will be difficult, he said.
The Health ministry requires remains to be disposed of in a manner that prevents spread of the infection and is culturally appropriate for the bereaved.
Dr Gathoni, however, denies allegations the county is indifferent about improving the morgue at King Fahad County Referral Hospital.
She said Sh5 million has been set aside to rehabilitate health facilities in its 2020-21 budget.
The main challenge has been procurement issues for the county Health department, she said.
Lamu assembly Health committee chairman James Komu said the county has failed in its mandate to provide fully functioning health services.
“The lack of proper morgue services in King Fahad is part of a wider problem within the Health department whose officials we have regularly summoned,” he said.
“There’s need to probe why basic services and drugs are inadequate not only at King Fahad but also at Mpeketoni,” the committee chairman and Hongwe MCA said.
Mpeketoni is often burdened by King Fahad’s referrals due to lack of capacity, he said.
He dismissed complaints about bureaucracy and procurement challenges, saying they were excuses by the Health department to escape responsibility for “glaring incompetence,” exposed by the Covid-19 crisis.
“Not to sound like an alarmist but as things stand, Lamu county is not ready to handle an epidemic on the scale of coronavirus. That applies to patient isolation and handling the bodies of those who die of the disease,” Komu said.
Mpeketoni Subcounty Hospital administrator Bill Jumlaa said it’s not all gloom and doom about morgue facilities. He said the hospital is able to handle bodies based on the current population.
“We know there is a need to rehabilitate the main hospital morgue, though for now the county can make do with the Mpeketoni facility,” Lamu chief Health officer Dr Victor Tole said.
“In case of a full-blown pandemic and many deaths, there’s no evidence how the Health department would handle such a crisis at the King Fahad Referral Hospital,” Manda resident Benson Ojuok said.
He said that as non-Muslim residents, his family was forced to speed up burial plans due to lack of cold storage at King Fahad Hospital. They desperately had to source for burial funds.
Lamu Governor Fahim Twaha maintains that healthcare has greatly improved.
He admitted, however, “aspects need improving, such as rehabilitation of certain facilities within our Referral Hospital and other hospitals in Mpeketoni and Witu.”
“The Sh200 million Universal Healthcare Coverage programme provides access to morgue facilities to ensure our 20,000 household initiative covers everyone regardless of religion,” Twaha said.
He said the aim is to provide residents with dignity in both life and death.
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