By Melvin Tejan Mansaray
The Coroner Technician at the Connaught Mortuary, Freetown, Sierra Leone has confirmed that his team has collected some forty remains of deceased mortals in the country’s capital, Freetown.
The figures he said accounts for only two days of the ongoing three days national coronavirus lockdown in the country.
Sinneh Kamara, Coroner Technician, Connaught Mortuary said that the number of collections is unusual and means a lot of work on their part at the Mortuary.
He thanked his superiors for doing all that they can to boost their operations to meet the uphill task.
Sinneh was responding to queries by this Press, enquiring whether social media reports of dead bodies being stocked in homes due to the prevailing lockdown measures and people not being able to do the normal for the remains of their lost ones are true.
The toll-free 117 emergency number is said to be congested, causing some people to explore a better option of calling the Coroner Technician’s Office directly.
As on the second day (Monday 6th April 2020) of lockdown, Sinneh said: ” Yes, it is true we have been collecting dead bodies in Freetown. “
“Forty corpses have been collected for now, more might be collected as at the final day of the lockdown,” Sinneh Kamara said, noting that
“on the first day of the lockdown, thirteen corpses were collected and the rest of the numbers are for the second day.”
Sinneh however gave an idea of the categories of dead people collected so far by stating that ” their age brackets are from – three, four, five months, five years, twenty-five years, thirty-seven, seventy years and above.”
He however clarified that “one of the corpses was collected from the Street and the rest from homes with natural causes of death and one alleged murder.”
Sierra Leone has entered its final of a three-day lockdown, having registered six coronavirus positive cases, no death and hundreds of people in quarantine.
The Connaught Mortuary is one of the few major referrals and at times of emergency, it is almost always outstretched.
The Mortuary is faced with challenges that Sinneh said like every other institution is not unique and insurmountable.
An anonymous Source at the Mortuary said that their needs should be met if they are to render the swift and effective emergency services expected of them in this time of a coronavirus disease outbreak.
A Volunteer (who wishes not to be named) at the Mortuary said that there is a need for them to be giving incentives as a morale booster for the risk that they are taking with their lives and that of their families and communities.
” We need fuel, we do not have enough gloves, we do not have food and drinking water and many other things; we need the Ministry to look into these areas now for us not to be overwhelmed and less effective, ” the Anonymous Source said.
