Malawi to privatise mortuaries: Kamlepo says its ‘horrendous’

Member of Parliament for Rumphi East, Kamlepo Kalua (People’s Party) send parliament into a laughter mode when he said “a mortuary and an ambulance is the same and they marry.”

His comments came when he told Minister of Health Jean Kalilani that an ambulance in his constituency was withdrawn.

But when MPs laughed at his statement, Kalua said: “Listen, people should not just laugh for the sake of laughing or entertaining this House. It is similar and related because when a body is there, and there is an ambulance service, they can take that body to a village and for them to say it is not similar is something quite strange.”

There was more laughter and Speaker Richard Msowoya said Kalua was making the Members to laugh “for the sake of it, because a dead body, an ambulance and a mortuary are not the same.”

But Kalua insisted that they are the same.

“You know that they are not the same,” said the Speaker.

Kalua responded: “But they belong to the same section.”

Meanwhile, Minister of Health Kalilani told the House that through the reforms, government is going to propose the delinking of mortuaries from public hospitals using the Private Public Partnership (PPP) law, “to enable private people to run the mortuaries.”

Kalilani said it is a proposal and only informed “what is in the pipe line. “

Kalua stood on a point of order to state that Minister of Health is out of order by informing the country that in her ministry, there are plans to privatise mortuaries.

Said Kalua: “This is horrendous and terrible. How can you privatise mortuaries? What message is she trying to send to the country? “

Speaker of Parliament, Richard Msowoya, commented on Kalua’s point of order: “I think you are in a very good mood today. You know, as much as I do, if I may say so, that in most of the developed world, all morgues are privately owned by the undertakers. Let us not go there, but what I am trying to say is that you are ruled out of order. Malawi must also progress amongst other countries. “