Body Swap Cause Confusion At UTH

A mix-up of bodies at the University Teaching Hospital has had both mourners and hospital management accusing each other of negligence.
The family of a 46 year old Rosemary Nsenduluka who died on Saturday whilst admitted to UTH was on Tuesday shocked to discover that they had collected a wrong body from the mortuary as they made arrangements for burial.
According to Matthew Nsenduluka,the family went to pick up his mothers body from the mortuary on Tuesday morning and took it to St Johns funeral Parlour in readiness for burial the same day.But they later discovered that the body in the coffin was of another person.
Nsenduluka said that they went back to UTH to inform the hospital authorities that they had been given a wrong body and when they did not get any positive response,they went to the mortuary to find out from the attendants where their mothers body was.
he explained that the mortuary attendants explained to them that the nurse who was at their mother’s bedside when she died allegedly swapped the deceased’s name tag with that of another female patient who had past away earlier.
“He initially told us that the nurse who was by her mother’s bedside before she died had swapped the name tags and details.
Whilst preparing the body before taking it to the mortuary,she accidentally swapped the name tags with that of another female patient that had already died.He told us that after the names were swapped,my mother’s body was taken by the other family and they actually Buried her,”Nsanduluka Explained.
“After we made noise at the UTH,they initiated an investigation and they went to exhume the body which was buried by the other family.Even the husband of the deceased lady whose name tags were swapped with my mother’s also reported to UTH that the body they had burried was not his wife’s.”
UTH managing director director Dr Lackson Kasonka blamed the other family for not reporting the matter to UTH before going ahead to bury a wrong body.
“I don’t know why the other family went ahead to bury the body of a person they knew was not their relative.They had prepared the body viewing ,so why did they not tell us?”he asked.
Dr Kasonka also urged mourners to ensure that the they picked up the correct bodies before leaving UTH Premises to avoid such incidents.