ODSG CONDUCTS MASS BURIAL FOR 496 UNCLAIMED CORPSES
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As part of efforts geared towards decongesting the morgues at the Akure and Ondo complexes of the State University of Medical Science Teaching Hospital (UNIMEDTH), the government has carried out a mass burial of four hundred and ninety six unclaimed corpses at the health facilities.
The Special Adviser to the State Governor on Health, Prof. Dayo Faduyile who was briefing journalists on the development in his office said the move was a follow-up to an assessment tour of morgues in the two hospitals.
Faduyile noted that government officials had recently embarked on an assessment tour of the morgues in the two health facilities and observed with dismay their gory state, having been jam-packed with unclaimed bodies spanning a year and above.
The Special Adviser said the development prompted him to put up a strong memo to the State Governor, Arakunrin Oluwarotimi Akeredolu, SAN on the urgent need to decongest and rehabilitate the morgues, which had literally turned to an eye-sore.
Faduyile added that Mr. Governor did not hesitate to approve the memo to carry out the proposed mass burial activities, so as to avoid an imminent outbreak of epidemic diseases in the state.
As a professional pathologist, Faduyile averred that his office followed all due process by putting all necessary machineries in place for a quality and hitch-free mass burial activities.
He said these include obtaining mass burial permit from the Chief Magistrate of the Magistrate Court of Justice, Oke-Eda, Akure, securing a parcel of land at Odigbo Local Government, from the State Ministry of Lands and Housing for the mass burial, advertising the mass burial on the print and electronic media, giving a 21-day period to reclaim the unclaimed bodies, in compliance with the extent laws of the land.
Others, according to Faduyile is the auditing of the unclaimed bodies in the morgues of Akure and Ondo UNIMEDTH complexes for record purposes and the certification of the unclaimed bodies to ascertain their individual causes of death.
Faduyile said” In all, eighty-seven (87) bodies were identified/known with their name tags while four hundred and nine (409) were unknown and a total of four hundred and ninety six (496) bodies underwent mass burial.
“The 21-day ultimatum as publicised on prints and electronic media commenced on the 1st of August and lapsed on the 21st of August, 2022.Thereafter, preparations for the mass burial commenced.
“On Friday, September 2nd, 2022, the mass burial was carried out, with the protection of security operatives and a handful of pressmen. The bodies were buried in a deep grave of 10 by 10 feet wide, and 18 feet depth, at the allocated land by the State government”.
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