Pindi DHQ hospital to have spacious mortuary

New morgue will be constructed at cost of Rs0.61 million

RAWALPINDI:

The District Headquarters Hospital (DHQ) Rawalpindi has approved a plan to upgrade the old single-room mortuary, where only one post-mortem could be carried out at a time, and currently, it has the capacity to keep four bodies in the cold storage.

Under the plan, a new state-of-art mortuary and a new medical store building will be constructed having a post-mortem classroom for medical students, a conference room, besides multiple tables.

Skilled doctors and trained paramedical staff will be deployed in the new mortuary to offer quality services.

The existing mortuary of the DHQ is facing a load of post-mortem cases from all over the district. Often the post-mortem is not performed on time. The hospital administration also faces extraordinary pressure from the families of the deceased.

The new mortuary building will be constructed at a cost of Rs0.61 million and the building of a medical store at a cost of Rs0.44 million on the land available behind the hospital building.

Medical Superintendent DHQ Dr Farzana Zafar said that the existing mortuary building was located in front of the doctors’ hostel and wards’ entry gates due to which doctors, nurses and patients faced difficulties.

“The existing mortuary building will be maintained till the construction of the new building,” she said. “Later on, this building will be demolished to create parking space.

“Four post-mortem tables will work simultaneously in the new mortuary besides the cold storage capacity will also be increased to store ten bodies,” she added. Moreover, chillers for cold storage were being donated to the hospital.

Dr Farzana said that medical students will also be able to benefit from the new mortuary where they will be able to conduct their research work in a more sophisticated way.

She said that due to the growing number of patients in the hospital, a new medical store is also needed. For this, a new building will be constructed and the existing medical store will be shifted to there, where necessary facilities will be provided for safe storage of medicines.

 

Published in The Express Tribune, January 13^th, 2022.