Freezers at the only mortuary service in the federal capital, at the Pakistan Institute of Medical Sciences (PIMS), have been working ineffectively for the last six months, reducing the mortuary’s capacity to only six bodies.
A PIMS official told Pakistan Today, “Ours is the only mortuary in the city and it was already unable to meet the demand, but on top of that, for the last six months its freezers- which are essential to preserve dead bodies- have been of order. Instead of taking any action to repair them, the administration is using the Children’s Hospital mortuary.” The official also said that the freezers broke down frequently as they were out-dated and old. He also mentioned that the hospital can now accommodate only six bodies in the main mortuary, two in the Children’s Hospital, and another two in the Mother and Child Hospital.
The fact that not a single government hospital in the capital has a mortuary to deal with emergency situations points towards the lax and apathetic attitude of the relevant authorities.
However, another government hospital, Services Hospital, has recently built a mortuary but it is not functional yet. A Services Hospital official told Pakistan Today that the mortuary at the hospital was complete and the delay in its inauguration was not understandable as the hospital had even hired a surgeon, Dr. Arshad Mehmood, to operate the mortuary
PIMS Deputy Director Social Welfare Dr. Waseem Khawaja told Pakistan Today that the PIMS mortuary, even when fully functional, couldn’t possibly provide for the whole city and that a federally centralized mortuary with a large capacity needed to be built immediately. Dr. Khawaja said, “Mortuaries should not be established in hospitals because as they are already burdened with thousands of patients thus making it difficult to tackle dead bodies and DNA tests at in emergency situations.”
PIMS Surgeon Dr. Farrukh Kamal, when contacted said, “The freezers and the mortuary kit installed in the PIMS mortuary are over 20 years old and thus out dated. These days the freezers are working ineffectively.”
