The Management of Korle Bu Teaching Hospital (KBTH) has announced plans to carry out a mass burial of approximately 320 unclaimed corpses in its mortuary after the facility reached full capacity. This is contained in a press release dated Monday, December 22, 2025, and issued on December 23, in which the hospital management stated that congestion at the mortuary has made the mass burial exercise necessary. “The Management of Korle Bu Teaching Hospital wishes to inform the general public that the Hospital Mortuary is currently congested and has reached full capacity,” the statement read. “As a result, management will conduct a mass burial of all unclaimed, unknown, and unidentified bodies at the mortuary.” The hospital has given relatives, next of kin or any persons with interest in any of the bodies a strict 21 day window to come forward and make necessary arrangements. The deadline falls on Saturday, January 18, 2026. “Relatives, next of kin, or any persons with interest in any of the bodies are requested to contact the Management of KBTH within twenty one days of this notice, on or before 18th January 2026, to make the necessary arrangements,” the release directed. The exercise will be conducted in accordance with approved procedures and relevant regulations, and in collaboration with the Accra Metropolitan Assembly (AMA). The hospital management appealed for public understanding and cooperation regarding the mass burial exercise. The significant figure of 320 bodies underscores the scale of the issue facing Ghana’s largest referral hospital. The problem is often attributed to factors including unidentified accident victims, abandoned corpses, and families unable to afford burial costs. This announcement highlights a persistent and grim challenge for the hospital, which periodically must clear its mortuary facilities of unclaimed bodies. Korle Bu Teaching Hospital has faced recurring mortuary congestion issues over the years. In April 2020, during the COVID 19 pandemic, the hospital announced a similar mass burial as its mortuary became full beyond carrying capacity. At that time, some bodies had been in the mortuary for varying periods ranging from one to three years. In February 2024, the hospital’s Chief Executive Officer, Dr Opoku Ware Ampomah, disclosed plans to hand over the hospital’s mortuary to the Accra Metropolitan Assembly to be used as a city morgue for the preservation of unidentified bodies. This decision was to take effect after the hospital completed construction of a new mortuary as part of activities to commemorate its centenary anniversary. Dr Ampomah explained that because Ghana does not have dedicated city morgues, health facilities such as Korle Bu and the Komfo Anokye Teaching Hospital have become default morgues where unidentified bodies are deposited. He noted that aside from having to refrigerate unidentified bodies at its expense, the hospital also had to use its meagre resources to organize mass burials, including advertising ahead of the exercise. “City authorities are the bodies which receive taxes, such as property rates and, therefore, are responsible for these unidentified bodies,” Dr Ampomah said in February 2024. He added that the hospital also had to pay for burial permits to the city authority, which was primarily responsible for those abandoned bodies. The CEO further revealed that when pathologists, including consultant pathologists, worked on unidentified bodies, they were paid less than GH¢5 for each body, an amount which sometimes did not get paid. This inadequate compensation highlighted the financial burden placed on the hospital for handling what should be a municipal responsibility. In February 2025, just months before this current announcement, Korle Bu temporarily suspended accepting fresh dead bodies and Brought in Dead (BID) cases to allow for a six week refurbishment of its mortuary facilities. The hospital urged bereaved families whose deceased relatives had been in the mortuary for three to six weeks to make immediate arrangements for burial or transfer to alternative facilities. The refurbishment of the 600 capacity cold room was aimed at enhancing service delivery at the facility. The facelift involved servicing and replacing some parts of the cold rooms to address deteriorating conditions. Hospital authorities noted at the time that the mortuary’s cooling systems had been experiencing periodic malfunctions, leading to concerns about their ability to maintain optimal temperatures for body preservation. Mustapha Salifu, Head of Public Relations at Korle Bu Teaching Hospital, explained during the February 2025 refurbishment that the hospital has a system where when bodies are kept for a period, they announce and advertise for bereaved families to claim bodies. If that does not happen, they engage city authorities for the burial of such bodies. The current situation, with 320 unclaimed bodies, represents one of the largest mass burial exercises the hospital has undertaken in recent years. The number suggests that despite previous efforts to decongest the mortuary, including the 2025 refurbishment and periodic announcements, the problem of unclaimed bodies continues to overwhelm the facility’s capacity. The types of bodies typically found in such situations include victims of road traffic accidents who arrive at the hospital without identification, homeless individuals who die and have no known relatives, bodies abandoned by families unable to afford funeral costs, and unidentified persons brought in from various locations around Accra. Ghana’s cultural and religious practices place significant importance on proper burial rites, which typically require substantial financial resources for coffins, ceremonies and other funeral expenses. This creates a situation where some families, despite knowing their relatives are in the mortuary, cannot afford to claim and bury them according to customary expectations. The hospital’s decision to work with the Accra Metropolitan Assembly for the mass burial reflects an attempt to ensure that the exercise follows proper protocols and respects the dignity of the deceased, even in cases where their identities are unknown or families have not come forward. The 21 day notice period is designed to give adequate time for families who may not be aware that their relatives are at the Korle Bu mortuary, or who have been unable to make arrangements due to financial or other constraints. The hospital typically publishes such notices in newspapers and on various media platforms to reach the widest possible audience. However, the recurring nature of mortuary congestion at Korle Bu raises questions about systemic issues in Ghana’s healthcare and municipal service delivery. The absence of dedicated city morgues means that teaching hospitals designed primarily for patient care and medical education must also function as long term storage facilities for unclaimed and unidentified bodies. This diverts hospital resources, including space, refrigeration costs, staff time and administrative effort, away from core healthcare functions. It also creates public health concerns if refrigeration systems malfunction or if the mortuary becomes so congested that proper preservation of bodies becomes difficult. The planned handover of the current mortuary to the Accra Metropolitan Assembly, once the new facility is completed, may help address some of these issues by creating a clearer distinction between hospital mortuary services for patients and families, and municipal morgue services for unidentified or unclaimed bodies. As the January 18, 2026 deadline approaches, the hospital management has urged anyone with information about bodies in the mortuary to come forward promptly. The mass burial exercise, while necessary from an operational perspective, represents a sobering reminder of the social and economic challenges that leave some Ghanaians without proper burial arrangements.