UAE | Crime
Morgue shortage sees man's body left in ambulance
A lack of morgue space at hospitals in Sharjah forced police to keep a man's body inside their ambulance for several hours before transferring it to the forensic laboratory's morgue, a police source told Gulf News.
- By Bassma Al Jandaly, Staff Reporter
- Published: 22:00 February 24, 2008
Sharjah: A lack of morgue space at hospitals in Sharjah forced police to keep a man's body inside their ambulance for several hours before transferring it to the forensic laboratory's morgue, a police source told Gulf News.
Police said the unidentified Indian man died in a traffic accident on Saturday and was taken to Al Kuwaiti Hospital in Sharjah. When the police ambulance reached the hospital the doctor at the emergency section went out to the ambulance and checked the man. The doctor pronounced him dead but refused to keep the body in the morgue saying there was no space available.
Eight spaces
The police official said that the doctors asked police to find another morgue for the dead man.
"We were forced to keep the man for several hours in front of the Al Kuwaiti Hospital door on Saturday night because we were not able to find a morgue for him," he said.
The police tried hard to find space for the man at Al Qasimi Hospital but in vain because there was no vacant space available there either. After keeping the body for at least four hours in the ambulance, they took it to the police forensic laboratory.
Officials from Al Kuwaiti Hospital said that there were only eight morgue spaces available in the hospital and they were always occupied.
The official said that in Sharjah there are 12 spaces in the mortuary at Al Qasimi Hospital and 22 spaces at Sharjah Police's forensic laboratory and they remain full most of the time.
Recently, a Syrian man also buried his father in Sharjah against his will because he could not get space for the body in the morgue. He said they had no option in the matter.
"We kept him in our own car for several hours trying to find a place to keep his body until we completed procedures for transferring the body," he said.
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