Our friend the mortuary man

Our Friend The Mortuary Man
A group of 10 mourners stood at the gate of the mortuary where they had gone to check whether the body of their beloved “was being kept well”.

They had been waiting for the mortuary man for a while and were getting impatient but could not leave because their mission had not been accomplished. The mourners had learnt that if you do not “see” the mortuary man, the body of your beloved will not get good treatment. So they waited.

When the mortuary man finally emerged, removed his gloves and stretched out his hand to greet them, they pretended that they had not seen his hand and started looking at the trees around. He was used to that behaviour and ignored what normally would be regarded as rude.

Rather the mortuary man assured them that everything was okay. When he invited them to come in and see their beloved for themselves, only two of the mourners gathered the courage to do so! Fear had grabbed the legs of the other eight; They'd rather not see the body.

One vocation in our society which seems so steeped in mystery is the work of the mortuary man. Though very little is known about the work of this special group of people, several stories are told about their mystical powers. Some even claim that they talk to the dead and that in some cases where the souls of the dead refuse to be at rest, chants from the mortuary man calms them down!

The general perception about the mortuary man seems to be borne out of our fear and or reverence for the dead. It is related to the thought that anyone who touches and does things with the dead must not be entertained by the living. With this kind of thinking it is only logical to conclude that any group of persons dealing with the dead on a daily basis must possess supernatural powers in equal measure, if not more.

Mortuary men are, therefore, people we do not like to go too close to; we would rather admire them from a distance. The mere sight of these health workers sends shivers down the spines of many and it is usually an experience most people would rather pray passes over them like the biblical cup in the case of the Christ.

But the world being what it is; death is part of life. It happens that once in a while, whether we like it or not, we come face to face with the mortuary man at the loss of a relation.

It is during these times that the mortuary man, who is always at the fringes of society, calls the shots and throws his weight about in the presence of the rich and powerful. After all, he is performing an important job which few people would dare to do.

Strongman is the name of a popular mortuary man at the Korle Bu Teaching Hospital's mortuary in Accra. He has been doing this job since he was 30. At 56 now, his job description has been to remove bodies for post mortem to the theatre and for embalmment, pack bodies into the fridges, pick up bodies from the wards to the morgue and cleaning.

Very well built in stature, Strongman used to be a fisherman but when fishing was not putting adequate food on his table, he left to work as a porter at the then Ghana Food Distribution Corporation . He says his job as a porter was also not too rewarding financially, so when his sister got him the job as a mortuary man, he obliged.

Before he started working in the mortuary, Strongman had heard tales of how such workers use some spiritual powers but for him, “I only do this job with the help of God”. He said that contrary to the notion that mortuary men had to drink a lot of alcohol in order to do the job, he was an occasional drinker and does not drink because of the job.

His family does not treat him differently from other members but “sometimes it is rather some outsiders who shun me”. He likes his job, teaches others to do it by apprenticeship but says the salary is not encouraging at all.

Mr Alex Moffatt who has been doing the job of a prosector at the same mortuary for 22 years is a middle school form four leaver. He was trained on the job to open up bodies for pathologists to do the post mortem. After that he puts the organs back into the bodies and stitches them up.

He also started the job in the morgue as a cleaner, became a mortuary attendant and then a mortuary man before his transfer to the theatre to work as a prosector. Mr Moffatt, who is also a pastor at the Christian Forces Church in Mamprobi is happy with his job because he believes “God wants me to learn something”.

But he is not satisfied with the salary which he puts at about GH ¢300 a month in spite of the risks involved. He talks about occasional cuts from the surgical blade, pricks from the needle during work and susceptibility to diseases such as tuberculosis, HIV/AIDS and cholera. In spite of these, the government pays them no risk allowance. His hope was that the Single Spine Salary Structure would address these concerns, but so far there have been no signs of such redress.

Professor Agyeman Badu Akosa, a Pathologist, explains that mortuary men include those category of staff trained as prosectors to open up bodies for post-mortem examination.

They have been trained on the job in the different ways to open the bodies, dependent on what the problem was and the different procedures that might be necessary for the completeness of the postmortem. Prof Akosa describes them as “very necessary for the work in the morgue”.

Contrary to the situation in other societies like the UK where mortuary men are trained to the post-graduate level, our mortuary men go through what the affable Professor refers to as the “University of Hard Knocks”. They are mostly cleaners in health facilities who metamorphose into mortuary men.

At the La General Hospital Morgue for instance, Madam Margaret Abossey- Tawiah, an environmental officer of the Ministry of Health who is the head of the mortuary explains that the four mortuary men were cleaners who were drafted into the mortuary. She said their training has been limited to short training in how to embalm bodies by an official from the Korle Bu Teaching Hospital.

Apart from the lack of structured training, Madam Abbosey-Tawiah said remuneration for the mortuary man was nothing to write home about though they receive some motivation allowances from the hospital.

She explained that since none of the four could read or write, she was saddled with all the paper work associated with the job. She was of the view that in future, the authorities should draft into the unit, people who could read and write.

According to Prof Akosa, the idea of a school for training mortuary men with a curriculum in Ghana was mooted by the Ghana Health Service years ago but nothing has happened.

He said a full syllabus was prepared for mortuary attendants’ training by the Human Resource Division of the Ghana Health Service for a diploma course and a degree programme like it is in the UK. As things stand, there is no qualification for mortuary men and also no structure in terms of their career progression.

Mr George Dankyi, Manager of the Korle Bu Hospital’s Mortuary advocates strongly for a school to train mortuary men. He is of the view that such structured formal training would improve health and safety (especially in the area of preventing infections), improve human relations, overall efficiency and recognition and appreciation of the work of the mortuary man.

“If we were doing things right , we would not carry bodies in a taxi in one minute and carry bread for sale in the same taxi the next minute. Handling the dead is something that should be done by people in the field for health reasons” , he explains.

Mr Dankyi thinks that a school for the training of mortuary men should attract Senior High School leavers for training into the field for more effective work.

Even though present salaries for mortuary men are low, Mr Dankyi says a number of people approach him frequently for employment in the mortuary because of the “thank yous” relations offer in a bid to get their bodies well treated.

Dr Ebenezer Appiah-Denkyirah, Director of Human Resource Development at the Ministry of Health recognises the need for some formalised and structured training for mortuary men but said it was not being done at the moment and that it was something that the ministry would have to consider.

He said that such an idea, if implemented, could attract younger people into the profession which seems inundated by the not so young.

For now, mortuary men are not well motivated because they are not well paid and not generally recognised and appreciated for their work by the larger society. Also, they have no proper career progression since most of them come initially as cleaners and undergo very little training, if any at all. It therefore becomes difficult for them to transit to becoming qualified prosectors.

Though the Korle Bu Teaching Hospital and the La General Hospital Mortuary and a few others in the capital were the focus of this write-up, there is nothing to suggest that mortuary men in other mortuaries across the country may be faring better.

The bottom line is that the way we have shunned this all-important aspect of our health care leaves much to be desired. If anything at all, it should be at the back of the minds of policy makers and the larger society that the services of mortuary men are one that we will all require sooner or later and the earlier they ensured that we have well- trained and motivated mortuary men in the country to assist pathologists as obtains in most civilised societies, the better it will be for us. We cannot have a holistic, quality health care system if we ignore the mortuary man - everybody's friend at last.

Writer’s e-mail: aamakai@hotmail.com