Online Reporter
Arron Nyamayaro
A CHITUNGWIZA Central Hospital nurse was on Tuesday arrested for tampering with the body of a child in the hospital mortuary and having it cremated.
Munashe Ganyiwa (32) was reported to have pronounced dead an admitted patient, Emmanuel Charindapanze, aged eight months.
Baby Emmanuel had been admitted on Saturday for medical attention in a paediatric ward.
In the early hours of Sunday, Emmanuel had hiccups and his mother Shamiso Nyause (46) called for help.
Ganyiwa came and pronounced Emmanuel dead.
She removed all the clothes of the baby and left just a nappy on. Ms Nyause was given her child’s clothes and towel. The body was taken to the mortuary by another nurse under the mortuary department.
On Monday, Ms Nyause and her husband Givemore Charindapanze, went to the hospital with a burial order to collect the body.
However, the mortuary attendant told them that the child’s body was not in the mortuary.
Efforts to find the body were done by having all the children’s bodies in the mortuary taken out for identification by the parents, but their child’s body was not found.
The mortuary attendant then called the nurse who brought and booked the child’s body in the mortuary to help him find the missing body.
The nurse told the couple that she suspected the child’s body might have been cremated, leading to the arrest of Ganyiwa.
Harare provincial police spokesperson Inspector Luckmore Chakanza confirmed the case.
“Police arrested a health worker in connection with violating corpses in Chitungwiza. The parents failed to access their body at the mortuary. The complainants tried to make some enquiries with the hospital management leading to the arrest.
“Investigations are continuing,” said Insp Chakanza.
