Deputy Minister of Lands, Abida Sidik Mia, who is also a member of Parliament for Chikwawa Nkombedzi constituency on Friday opened a new morgue worth K28 million at Ngabu Rural Hospital in the constituency.
The facility has been constructed using Constituency Development Fund (CDF) to the tune of K24 million and K4 million Abida Mia’s own personal resources.
Deputy Minister of Health Chrissy Kalamula Kanyasho, who was the guest of honour at the opening function said the mortuary is ‘a burden lifted’ for the Ministry of Health.
“As Ministry of Health, we are very pleased with the work that has been done here about the mortuary and we thank the MP for the area who is also the Deputy Minister of Lands, Honorable Abida Mia, for putting in all her efforts to make sure that the mortuary is completed timely. She has done a very recommendable job and as the Ministry of health, a burden is lifted—it’s one project done and now we can move on and see what’s next on the agenda,” she said.
Kanyasho bemoaned said the old mortuary at the facility was small and could only keep one body at a time but now the new mortuary has six trays in the cold-room meaning it can keep six bodies.
She added: “What I like most is that the space is spick and span—very clean and I sure do hope that the DHO and his staff will maintain the mortuary as it is.”
On her part, Abida Sidik Mia noted that her constituents can now afford a sigh of relief with this new facility.
‘With the old Morgue which was simply keeping one body, it was very stressful sometimes when the Ambulance had a breakdown and somebody has passed away, we had no options but to hire other vehicles like a pickup or maybe a minibus to make sure that we transport that body urgently for fear that the body may go bad as temperature in our area here can rise up to 40 degrees census.
“I am very happy that we can relax a bit when we have a problem because we can actually keep the body in the mortuary for a day or two before we dispatch,” she said.
Abida Mia also observed that the morgue would help in proper investigations of murder cases.
“In very rare cases, if you have murder cases, the police can investigate those cases while they are keeping it in a morgue,” she said.
