Mbarara Regional Referral Hospital is facing a severe health and infrastructural challenge due to the absence of its own mortuary facility, forcing the hospital to rely entirely on the Mbarara University of Science and Technology (MUST) pathology mortuary.
The facility has remained small since it was established when the university was founded, with ageing cold-storage units struggling to meet the growing demand.
Speaking to the Nile Post, Dr Deus Twesigye, the Acting Hospital Director, said the hospital does not have an independent mortuary and relies on the university facility, whose infrastructure has deteriorated over the years.
"To be sincere with you, Mbarara Regional Referral Hospital doesn't have a mortuary, the mortuary we rely on belongs to Mbarara University of Science and Technology. It is a mortuary that got constructed when the university started. It is small. It has a few spaces in the fridges. Fridges are very very old," Dr Twesigye said.
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He said the university administration has made efforts to repair the facility, but some of the equipment has now deteriorated beyond repair.
"Actually, Vice Chancellor and her team have been trying to repair them, but recently they went beyond the repair. However, we've been trying to treat the bodies that we get directly from our hospital, because these people who die in the hospital, we get a chance to know their relatives and even where they come from," he added.
The high volume of deceased persons from across the Western Region has continued to overwhelm the ageing facility, resulting in frequent breakdowns and limited storage space.
Dr Twesigye said the mortuary also receives bodies from different circumstances, further increasing pressure on the facility.
"What you pick as the most disgusting part of the mortuary is that we receive bodies collected from every corner. Accident victims, drowned victims in River Rwizi, murdered people, etc. We cannot handle anymore," Dr Twesigye said.
To address the chronic overcrowding and deteriorating infrastructure, Dr Twesigye called on Mbarara City Council to urgently establish a city mortuary to supplement the university facility and ease the burden on the regional referral hospital.
"If the city council established a city mortuary, it would bring relief. We however want to thank them for establishing land to have unclaimed bodies buried," Dr Twesigye said.
The issue came to light during a recent joint inspection led by the Head of the State House Health Monitoring Unit, Dr Warren Naamara.
Inspecting officials reported an unbearable stench around the premises, raising concerns about hygiene and public health.
Dr Naamara expressed concern over the situation, noting that the pathology facility belongs to the university department rather than the hospital or local government.
"As a regional referral hospital, Mbarara lacks an independent mortuary, and the city council equally possesses no city facility to handle civic deaths," Dr Naamara said.
He tasked both the city authority and hospital leadership with prioritising the establishment of dedicated, modern mortuaries to ensure dignity in handling the deceased and mitigate potential health risks to the surrounding community.
"Mbarara City does not have a mortuary. It does not have a city mortuary. I mean, everybody who gets an accident on Masaka-Mbarara Road or any of these roads, the feeder roads, they all get hipped into that small pathology mortuary. Inevitably, it smells," Dr Naamara said.
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Dr Naamara also raised concerns about alleged extortion around the current mortuary, which he linked to the overcrowding and vulnerability of grieving families.
"It is overflowing, and there are people who are very innovative who ask for money around there, which is a very sad story because there is a bad need and it is an emotional need. So people take time and really cheat around asking between Shs250,000 and Shs500,000," Dr Naamara said.
Local leaders and city council members are now under pressure to allocate emergency funding and secure land for a dedicated city mortuary.
In the interim, health officials are calling for immediate upgrades to the MUST pathology department to restore reliable cold storage and address environmental and hygiene concerns while longer-term infrastructural solutions are pursued.
