Dar medics want IMTU censured in ‘cadaver parts’ saga fallout

Dar es Salaam. The Medical Association of Tanzania (MAT) wants the owners and administrators of the International Medical Technological University (IMTU) punished severely for dumping body parts in an unofficial dump.

The association says it  has been deeply shocked by the news and said the matter has raised more questions than answers with regard to the operations of an Institution trusted with provision of health-related services in the country.

Its president, Dr Primus Saidia, while condemning the move, said the behaviour exhibited by IMTU warrants their  disqualification from practising  and  even running a medical training institution.  

“Human body and even the body parts, are treated with respect after use in medical institutions. This is a worldwide practice but their dumping  them in  the open here in Tanzania is a clear violation of  medical ethos,” Dr Saidia told a press conference yesterday in his office in Dar es Salaam.

The open disposal is also an unacceptable act of violating human dignity and cultural values of the local community, according to the fraternal entity of medical practitioners who now want the Medical Council of Tanzania to crack the whip against the culprits.

“In other countries, such a despicable and unprofessional behaviour is more than enough to bar  the institution from medical practice, research or even running a hospital or training facility,” said Dr Saidia. 

  “IMTU has lost its reputation and the quality of its services to the public is now in question. Thorough investigations should be carried out and appropriate measures taken against all the parties involved, ” he said.

But Dr Saidia did not say what steps, if any, that his association would prefer against its members who work at IMTU. Efforts to reach the council were also futile as its chairman was said to be away on a foreign trip. The ministry of health had also not spoken about the saga.

 On Monday evening, 85 plastic bags filled with various dried human body parts were found dumped in a quarry at the Bunju suburb in Kinondoni district on the outskirts of the city.

Already, eight people,  including doctors and administrators from IMTU,  are being held by the police as investigations into the scandal get underway.

It was alleged that a tutor at the college in whose custody the parts were placed for disposal made the decision to dump the body parts in  the open quarry.

He has since disappeared and police had mounted a manhunt for him.

Reports indicated on Tuesday that IMTU first took  body parts  to Muhimbili National Hospital for disposal but were turned away for lack of an incinerator.

The one used at the largest public hospital broke down in February this year.

The Dar es Salaam Special Police Zone Commander, Mr Suleiman Kova, told journalists on Tuesday that the suspects admitted during preliminary interrogation that the bodies were being used by the college for practical studies.

He said they have formed an investigation team to probe the controversy surrounding the manner in which the  body parts were disposed of following their removal from Muhimbili National Hospital.

Residents who found the bodies in the forested area on Monday night lamented that they had  been traumatized and unable to work at the quarry since the discovery of the various body parts strewn at the open quarry.

The scandal has also raised concern about the long absence of the lone incinerator at the biggest referral hospital, with fear mounting that public health may  be compromised due to haphazard disposal of the hospital’s solid waste.