Unpaid coroners at the Korle-Bu Teaching Hospital in Accra, have abandoned their work, leaving corpses decomposing and chances of determining their causes of death, slipping away.

Many of the coroners, who are also lecturers now prefer to lecture the living rather than investigate the cause of the dead. They have abandoned their duties in the morgue because "coming to the Korle-Bu morgue is a waste of their time”.

Joy News’ Fred Smith visited the hospital and reported that the coroners, who usually work on about 10 cases daily now pass by the morgue on their way to lectures to attend to one case a day.

An unnamed worker told Joy News that “they [coroners] used to get allowances [for their morgue duties] but for close to four years now they have not been paid anything.”

Although there is no foul smell emanating from the morgue, he explained that the morgue is built to contain any odours emanating from within. He claimed that more than 80 cases have been left unattended and the bodies are decomposing. 

With the police and families needing a coroner’s inquest to explain unexpected deaths, four years unpaid salary means justice delayed and justice denied.

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