Yilo Krobo Power Cut: Mortuaries cannot hold corpses anymore – Youth Activist
Families who have sent their deceased relatives for preservation in mortuaries in the Yilo and Manya Krobo municipalities say operators have called them to come for the remains of their dead ones.
Bodies stored at the facilities are decomposing in the wake of the community-wide power cut by the Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG).
In an interview with one of the youth activists in the area, Edmund Aboagye said about five families had received calls from mortuary attendants to retrieve their bodies.
According to the youth activist, the mortuary attendants say they cannot afford to fuel the generators that keep the facility running.
“I have had about four or five persons who have their family relations of dead bodies at the mortuary call to inform me that the hospitals have called them to come and pick up their dead bodies because they have started going bad at the mortuary,” he explained in an interview with Joy News on Monday, 8 August 2022.
However, the Yilo Krobo Municipal Health Director, Irina Offei, stated that she cannot confirm that families have yet been asked to come for their corpses. She added, however, that she is certain “if the power is not restored by Wednesday, probably, they will be asking families to do that.”
Madam Offei explained that the hospitals are now compelled to ration power because it is costing them more to keep the generators on.
Madam Offei stated that hospitals in the municipality without power spend between GH¢3,000 and GH¢5,000 to provide emergency services, theatre services, admissions, blood preservation, vaccination, and keeping refrigerators running.
She lamented that due to the high cost involved in getting power for laboratory equipment, “sometimes we have to refer to other health facilities that are nearby and have light.”
Speaking in an interview on Tuesday, 2 August 2022, Madam Offei explained that the hospitals in the affected municipalities are compelled to rely on generators to provide health services.
Background
Communities in the Yilo Krobo and Manya Krobo municipalities from Somanya to Kpong have been cut off from the national grid.
The areas have been in darkness since Wednesday, 27 July 2022, because ECG switched off feeders supplying power to communities in the two municipalities over illegal connections.
According to ECG, some recalcitrant residents have tampered with their transformers and reconnected power to their homes after being disconnected for refusing to accept prepaid meters.
In the Yilo Krobo Municipal Directorate, for example, the power outage has caused the relocation of municipal Cold Chain Equipment, which includes vaccine fridges and freezers for ice packs.
The directorate is also spending GH¢500 a day to power a generator.