An ambulance parked at the Moyo General hospital premises. By Stephen Unzimai

By Stephen Unzimai

Moyo

The management of Moyo general hospital has banned use of ambulance for transporting dead bodies. This comes after receiving a strong warning from the ministry of health that no hospital shall use ambulance for ferrying dead bodies.  The administration of the hospital has vowed to implement this policy stringently.  

According to the hospital administrator Besi Bernard, ministry of health has cautioned all hospitals to only use their ambulances for emergencies and rescuing lives of people. “The ministry has threaten to withdraw ambulances caught transporting dead bodies back to the ministry, we would not love the few ambulances we have to be retrieved because of using it for transporting dead bodies.” Besi said

He also asked communities to understand and bear with the hospital since this is a policy, so he said they would only use the few ambulance for carrying out emergencies but not for transporting dead bodies.

Mr. Eno Pasqualino, the chairperson for maduga village in moyo Sub County said this will affect the community since the people have majorly been depending on ambulances for transporting dead bodies of their dear ones. “If they want to stop ambulance from transporting dead bodies, let them replace it with another special vehicle because many people will not afford private meanS for transporting dead bodies of their relatives.” Mr. Eno said.

Mr. Adnan Umar a resident of Lefori town council in Moyo district instead suggested government to provide more ambulances to support communities. “I think stopping us from use of ambulance for transporting corpse of our dear ones will cause a lot of trouble, the best is government should provide us with more ambulances that will serve for both emergencies and transporting the dead bodies.” Mr. Adnan said.

Mr. Adnan added that government should not impose policies that do not suit status of the communities because the region has not yet developed. 
However, Baatio Joyce Uddu, the district secretary for health in the council says, this needs massive sensitization before it is implemented since it is now a government policy. “Generally community should be sensitized about this policy so that they are aware that the ambulances in the hospital are restricted only to transport patients but not dead bodies.” Hon. Baatio said.  She added that communities have gotten used to transporting dead bodies by ambulance, now implementing this policy will take time.
 
Ambulances are special vehicles for transporting the injured or sick people. According to ministry of health, any hospital that goes against this policy risk losing their ambulance to the head office.