Tygerberg Hospital’s makeshift morgue's already accepted nine bodies

Cape Town – Tygerberg Hospital’s temporary mass fatality centre, which can store more than 600 Covid-19 bodies, has already received nine.

Provincial health spokesperson Mark van der Heever said the makeshift morgue was not to alleviate pressure on the existing morgue but to act as a storage facility if undertakers could not manage.

The facility, the construction of which started last month through a partnership between Western Cape Health and the City, opened on July 10 when it admitted its first body.

“Covid-19 decedents are deemed to have died of natural causes and will therefore not be admitted to the Forensic Pathology service for a medico-legal investigation of death.

“The Western Cape Government, with all role-players including local municipalities, has been planning for potential Covid fatalities, including looking at all existing storage facilities within the province,” said Van der Heever.

“Nine bodies have been admitted in the morgue to date. The mass fatality centre consists of 12 containers on site and connected to three-phase power.

“It currently has 576 racking spaces, and once the remaining racks are delivered, will have a total storage capacity of 624 spaces,” he said.

Yesterday, Premier Alan Winde’s office said the update of its data dashboard was delayed after an IT issue, and it would therefore issue yesterday’s statistical update today.

By Tuesday, the Western Cape had 11876 active cases of Covid-19, with 91659 confirmed cases and 76835 recoveries. There were 2948 deaths.

Meanwhile, Winde said the pandemic had started to stabilise in the province, with a decline in some areas.

“Our teams have been working around the clock to ensure that our health systems are prepared to provide care to every single person should they need it.

“From the very beginning we understood that the hard lockdown was necessary to buy us time to do this.

“We have not taken this responsibility for granted, and I am extremely grateful to every person who worked with determination and speed to ensure we could provide the best possible services to all our people,” said Winde.

He said the early indication that the pandemic was starting to ease in some areas in the province was reflected in the health-care services platform capacity. Although it had pressures, it was coping with the demands.

The Hospital of Hope at the CTICC, which has 862 beds, has admitted 1366 patients to date. It currently has 139 patients. There have been 1150 discharges and 77 deaths at the field hospital to date.

Brackengate Intermediate Care Facility, which has 338 beds, has admitted 82 patients, and currently has 17 patients. There have been 65 discharges and no deaths to date.

The Thusong Centre in Khayelitsha, which has 60 beds, has admitted 234 patients and currently has 21. There have been 176 discharges and 31 deaths to date.

The Sonstraal Hospital is expecting to start accepting patients by August 10.

Cape Times