Manama mortuary remains closed as refrigeration system fails

Residents in Manama, Matabeleland South, continue to face challenges in preserving the bodies of deceased relatives after the mortuary at Manama Mission Hospital remained closed due to malfunctioning refrigeration equipment and other longstanding infrastructure problems.

Ward 17 councillor Andrew Ndlovu said the mortuary, located about 85 kilometres south of Gwanda, has been out of service for an extended period, forcing families to rely on private funeral parlours or transport bodies to distant facilities.

"The mortuary has been shut for the longest time. Many issues have contributed to the closure including malfunctioning refrigerators meant to house 12 people," Ndlovu told Southern Eye.

The mortuary is equipped with a 12-body refrigeration unit, but its operations have been hampered over the years by storm damage, inadequate funding and persistent electricity supply challenges.

Although recent solar power installations were intended to improve electricity reliability and support refrigeration systems, residents say the facility remains non-operational.

Ndlovu said the local community had previously attempted to assist by purchasing trays needed for the mortuary.

"The community once tried to intervene and bought trays because the hospital was short of those," he said.

With the public mortuary unavailable, residents have increasingly turned to a recently established private morgue for body storage.

"People have resorted to the private mortuary even though it might have high charges, but it's better than nothing," Ndlovu said.

"The good thing about it is that it keeps the body for free for the first three days and afterwards they are charged for the services."

However, community members say the costs associated with private facilities remain beyond the reach of many rural families.

Mohau Moyo, a teacher at a school near Manama Mission Hospital, appealed to the Government to intervene and rehabilitate the mortuary.

"May the government come in and assist local residents because it's sometimes hard for them to source money to keep bodies in a private mortuary," she said.

"The mortuary assisted a lot long back because people were not obliged to pay at all. Honestly speaking, some residents cannot afford to fork out exorbitant fees for the services."

Moyo noted that funeral arrangements are often delayed while families wait for relatives travelling from other parts of the country or abroad, resulting in additional storage costs.

"Sometimes some relatives take time to arrive for the burial so it becomes hard because this means the family will have to incur more costs. So yes, we would really appreciate it if the government could come through for us," she said.

Calls for the mortuary's rehabilitation are not new.

In 2022, residents urged authorities to urgently renovate the facility, which had already been non-functional for more than three years at the time.

The appeals came shortly after Government allocated US$28 million towards the renovation of the hospital's maternity ward, which had been damaged by severe hailstorms.

While health officials later confirmed that the maternity ward had been refurbished, residents say the mortuary was left out of the rehabilitation programme.

Villagers have since been forced to transport bodies to Gwanda or pay for private mortuary services, increasing the financial burden on already struggling households.

Community leaders are now calling on the Government and health authorities to prioritise the restoration of the mortuary, arguing that access to affordable and reliable mortuary services is an essential public health and social service for rural communities.