The Sissala East Municipal Director of Health Services in the Upper West region, Clifford Veng, has expressed worry over the lack of a mortuary for the Sissala East Municipal Hospital.
He stated that the lack of a mortuary at the facility forces authorities to keep corpses in undesignated places at the facility sometimes in same wards with patients and staff.
Clifford Veng disclosed this during the 2023 health performance conference of the Sissala East municipality at Tumu.
“When death occurs at the municipal hospital, the dead are supposed to be separated from the living immediately but in the case of our municipality, the situation is different.
“Corpses stay over 24 hours in undesignated areas pending the time relative will come for them,” he revealed.
He added, “When there is a death, some families need to preserve the deceased for some time to allow them to prepare adequately for the funeral rites hence the need for mortuary services with its benefits in the municipality.”
The 2023 Sissala East Municipal Health Sector performance review was held on the theme; ‘Of fostering collaboration: engaging stakeholders in reducing maternal and perinatal mortalities through a resilient healthcare system.’
Clifford Veng commended health workers and their stakeholders for the progress made over the years in delivering quality service to the people enumerating some successes chalked.
The Sissala East Municipal Director of Health Services opened up on the activities that they undertook during the year in review under review.
He said they conducted breast screening for adolescent girls in schools for early detection and management of cancer.
According to him, they also collected data to enumerate foreign migrants whose presence is increasing by the day affects resource allocation and their influx tends to affect the indicators that they have tirelessly worked to achieve over the years.
Apart from the challenge of not having a mortuary in the municipality, Clifford Veng also pencilled two other issues.
The municipal hospital X-ray machine is obsolete and as a result, now malfunctioning thereby producing poor quality imaging.
He mentioned the inadequate laboratory services for the people in the Sissala East.
The municipality has only three laboratories to take care of the hospital, eight health centres, a polyclinic and 52 community health planning(CHPS.
He pleaded for more laboratory survives to be established in the municipality.
Sissala East Municipal Chief Executive, Fuseini Yakubu Batong spoke of the unwavering commitment of government and the Sissala East municipality to improving the quality of health service delivery in the municipality..
