Osun State University Teaching Hospital in Osogbo, Osun State, has found itself in a troubling situation with an overflowing mortuary unit. The hospital’s management, inundated with unclaimed bodies piling up from as far back as January 2019, has been left with no choice but to issue an urgent 14-day deadline for relatives to retrieve the remains of their loved ones. With the capacity of the mortuary already strained beyond its limits, the overcrowding poses serious health and safety risks to both staff and the community at large.
As a last resort to address the pressing issue, the hospital has announced that it will conduct a mass burial for all unclaimed bodies in the hospital’s mortuary if no relatives come forward to claim their deceased loved ones within 14 days. This drastic measure, according to the management of OSUTH, is necessary to decongest the mortuary and maintain health standards for the hospital’s workers and the local community.
A statement read, “The management of UNIOSUN Teaching Hospital, Osogbo wishes to inform the general public that the hospital’s mortuary is presently congested and crowded with unclaimed bodies.
“Given this development, the management hereby calls on relatives who have corpses in the mortuary unit of the hospital between January 2019 and June 2023 to come and retrieve them within 14 days of this announcement.
“It should be noted that the management will resort to mass burial of all unclaimed bodies after 14 days of this announcement as an alternative to decongest the mortuary.”