Bhaktapur, January 6:

Thanks to lack of space, chemicals and other basic facilities like light and water at the morgue, officials at the Bhaktapur hospital have been finding it hard to make room for the corpses, undertake post-mortems and preserve the corpses, Shanka Bhatta, head constable stationed at the hospital, said.

The morgue has been facing an acute shortage of water, it has no lighting facility, does not have a fridge and chemicals to preserve corpses. So narrow is the morgue — only a post-mortem can be carried out at a time.

Asked about the situation of the building, Hari Prasad Dahal of the Administration Branch of the Hospital, said, “The locals protested when the hospital tried to shift the morgue. The Cancer Hospital, which is near the morgue, has pledged help to construct a new building for the morgue.

The medical director of the Bhaktapur Hospital, Govinda Prasad Ojha, pointed out the need to reconstruct the building.