Akwaibom State government to give 200 corpses mass burial

The Akwa Ibom State government has said that about 200 abandoned corpses in a public mortuary will be given mass burial in the first quarter of 2017.


The state Commissioner for Health, Dr. Dominic Ukpong, said this in Uyo on Thursday while defending the 2017 budget of his ministry.

He added that the abandoned corpses for mass burial are to be evacuated from the mortuary at Ikot Okoro General Hospital, Oruk Anam Local Government Area of the state.

Ukpong added that the impending exercise is intended to complement what his ministry did at Immanuel General Hospital, Eket LGA a year ago.

Ukpong, who was accompanied by the Permanent Secretary in his ministry, Mr. Bassey Attih; Director of Medical Services, Dr. Martin Akpan, and that of the Public Health, Dr. Godwin Ebuk, and other directors to the budget defence, stated that almost all public hospitals where mortuary services are provided in the state are overloaded with abandoned corpses.

He blamed the high number of abandoned corpses at the public mortuaries on poor burial planning which he said, at times took their surviving relations between two to three years without fulfilling.