The management of the Federal Medical Centre, Yenagoa, Bayelsa State, has raised the alarm that its mortuary is filled to capacity and can no longer contain more corpses.
The development followed the COVID-19 lockdown imposed since March on the state by Governor Douye Diri which banned burials, weddings and other social gatherings in the state.
Dr Alawode Kehinde, the consultant pathologist at the FMC mortuary, said on Thursday that the suspension of burials to curb the spread of the virus had resulted in overflow of corpses at the facility.
He said the ugly situation was posing a huge challenge to the FMC management on how to manage bodies awaiting burials by their owners.
Kehinde warned that if nothing was done to urgently evacuate the corpses at the morgue before June, the situation could get out of hand.
He said,
“As at last week, the morgue was really filled up. No matter how big the morgue is, if we are getting dead bodies and we are not burying, it will get to a point the morgue will be saturated; and we are already at that stage now.
“Because we have between now and June when the rains start, because of the terrain, it will be difficult and almost impossible to bury the dead.”
The consultant pathologist said a letter had been written to Diri in the past week to grant permission for owners of corpses to evacuate them for burial.
He expressed hope that the governor would grant the request and that such burials, when allowed, should be done in compliance with COVID-19 protocol on physical distancing.
Efforts to get the comment of the governor’s acting Chief Press Secretary, Mr Daniel Alabrah, did not yield any result as he could not answer call placed to his mobile phone.