Two hundred out of the 400 unclaimed bodies which crowded the Police Hospital mortuary for more than four months were finally buried in a mass grave at the Awudome Cemetery last Saturday. The action became necessary after hospital authorities were prevented by the people of Bortianor from burying the unclaimed bodies at the Mile 11 cemetery in August. The bodies comprised mainly of accident victims, street dwellers and insane persons whose identities were difficult to establish. The Medical Director of the hospital, DCOP Dr Godfried Asiamah, who supervised the burial, said the mortuary was overstretched by the number of unclaimed bodies. He said the hospital was relieved that the unclaimed bodies had been buried, saying, "I am happy that we were able to bury them, because the continuous stay of the bodies was too stressful." The action was facilitated by the Accra Metropolitan Chief Executive, Mr Alfred Vanderpuije, who released the space at the Awudome Cemetery for the mass burial. The space was released following a request by the hospital authorities to the assembly. DCOP Dr Asiamah said the hospital had held onto the burial of the remaining 200 unclaimed bodies, with the hope of establishing their identities and getting their relatives to claim them. He said the hospital had discontinued discussions with the people of Bortianor, since they had refused to allow the mass burial to take place at the Mile 11 Cemetery. The lack of a site for the mass burial forced the authorities of the hospital to consider the option of cremating the 400 unclaimed bodies. The authorities at the hospital, therefore, appealed to organisations and philanthropists to support the hospital authorities with some funds to enable them to carry out the cremation. In an earlier interview, DCOP Dr Asiamah had stressed that if the AMA failed to secure the land, the hospital authorities would not have any option but to cremate the bodies, since the continuous storage of the bodies could break down the fridges of the mortuary. According to him, some of the bodies were being kept on the floor of the cold room instead of the fridges. To avoid that situation, he said, .the hospital took steps to bury all the unidentified bodies in mass graves but the effort fell through when the people of Bortianor refused the bodies. He said a similar exercise to decongest the mortuary was undertaken last April with the burial of 125 unclaimed bodies at the Mile 11 Cemetery at Bortianor. Statistics at the hospital indicate a steady rise in the number of unidentified bodies sent to the hospital's mortuary. In 2007 for instance, 278 unclaimed bodies were buried and 373 were buried in 2008. DCOP Dr Asiamah attributed the trend to road accidents in which those who died were brought to the hospital by the police or volunteers on the scene. Additionally, he said, whenever people died in the streets and their relatives did not come forward to claim the bodies, the police collected such bodies and brought them to the hospital's mortuary. Source: Daily Graphic