World Vision, an international humanitarian organization, has pledged to refurbish the Beit Bridge District Hospital mortuary at a cost of R120 000.

The facility has not been functioning since last year in November, following the breakdown of its cooling system at the height of the cholera outbreak in the district.

The local chief medical officer, Dr Nyasha Masuka, told Mirror that World Vision had approached the local department of health and offered to chip in by acquiring new machinery for the mortuary. “We have since identified a contractor and we have also done our quotations as per their request. They are now working on the modalities, so that they quickly refurbish the facility,” he said.

The mortuary was designed to cater for only six bodies at a given time, but at times the facility would accommodate as much as 60 corpses, mostly unclaimed border jumpers found in the areas along the Limpopo River. Masuka said that, when refurbished, the mortuary will have a capacity of 20 bodies.

Currently, locals with deceased relatives are forced to either ferry bodies of their loved ones to mortuaries in neighbouring Musina or bury them the same day they die. Masuka said the local referral hospital had also been dogged with several other challenges, which in-cluded an acute shortage of drugs, equipment and inadequate staff.

Masuka said the maternity ward at Beit Bridge District Hospital was also not functioning because the theatre was not working, a devel-opment that has resulted in the suspension of births by caesarian section.

“Currently, the casualties department is not functioning, due to the shortage of drugs and surgical staff. That continues to adversely affect health service delivery, particularly in light of an ever increasing number of patients, including those in transit who visit our hospital. It should be noted that while Beit Bridge district is our catchment area, as a bor-der town we also have to treat people who fall sick on their journeys to either Zimbabwe or South Africa,” he said.

“The hospital is also facing constant water shortages and furthermore we are also relying on one vehicle for emergency operations and other services at the hospital. However, we are negotiating with the International Or-ganisation for Migration (IOM), which has pledged to donate US$3 000 towards the repair of the autoclave machine in our theatre and the acquisition of a water pump that will augment supplies at the hospital," he said.

Another South African NGO, Gift of Caregivers Foundation, recently donated several water storage tanks, a generator and drugs to the hospital during the outbreak of cholera in the border town.