Nigeria Content Online

Bodies of scores of
newborn babies and adults are to be subjected to mass burial by the
University of Benin Teaching Hospital (UBTH), Benin City, Edo State,
the federal tertiary institution’s management said at the weekend.

The Senior Public
Relations Officer of the institution, Ibitoye Kehinde, said 186 dead
babies and 40 adults in the hospital morgue will be disposed of, if
they remain unclaimed in two weeks’ time.

The unclaimed
bodies reportedly came to light as the hospital management was taking
stock of patients who have disappeared from its wards, leaving huge
medical bills unpaid. The patients allegedly absconded during a recent
strike by medical staff. The strike had been called to protest the
recent kidnap of UBTH’s Chief Medical Director, Michael Ibadim.

No fewer than 25
patients, earlier discharged but who could not leave because of unpaid
bills, were said to have left their hospital beds during the strike.
The hospital’s loss in unpaid bills is said to run into millions of
naira.

NEXT investigations
revealed that one escaped patient, Okereke Clifford, 32, had been on
admission on Ward A5 of the UBTH, for diabetes (Type IDM), and was
discharged close to two months before he went missing on April 14.
Clifford is believed to have left behind a medical bill of about N120,
000.

The consultant in charge of the escapee patient, K.P Kubujinje, was not available for comment at the time of going to press.

However, experts
say that Mr Clifford’s medical condition, as with many other escapee
patients, is terminal. It is doubtful whether such patients can afford
the medications to manage their illnesses.

Meanwhile, 120 of
the remains of dead infants went unclaimed at the first generation
varsity teaching hospital mortuary in the last quarter of the year
ended 2009, while another 68 who died between January and March 2010
are also yet to be claimed.

A breakdown of
recent records of unclaimed corpses of babies, include: one stillbirth,
25 who died at one-day-old; and 26 that lost their fight for life
within one week. Eighteen others died within two weeks. Also unclaimed
is the body of a 15-year-old that died after a brief illness.

Arrived without identification

About 40 corpses
are of adults said to have been brought to the UBTH by the Federal Road
Safety Commission (FRSC), the police, Non-Governmental Organizations
(NGOs) and public spirited individuals. Many of these arrived at the
hospital without proper identification and have been at the morgue for
great lengths of time.

“The hospital will be left with no other option than to dispose of
the corpses en-mass and unsung [in] any way the hospital management
deems fit,” Mrs Kehinde said. “It is a regular exercise of the hospital
carried out quarterly, as most of the unclaimed bodies are unknown
accident victims deposited by security agents or by the Benin-based
Save Accident Victims Association (SAVAN), an NGO that caters for the
welfare of accident victims at expressways.”