RATS have infested Kitwe Teaching Hospital with family members of a dead relative on Monday taking authorities at the institution to task after they found the body with missing parts. Suspicions arose among family members when they found the nose and part of the foot missing from the body of their relative.

They demanded answers from management on how a body in a mortuary could lose its parts. Management engaged the family in an effort to resolve the matter amicably.

Representative of the family Lawrence Kalibuku said in an interview yesterday that his 23-year-old niece was admitted to Kitwe Teaching Hospital but that she died after a week. Mr Kalibuku said when the relatives went to collect the body in readiness for burial, they found part of the foot and nose missing.

He said this raised suspicions among senior members of the family, who refused to bury the body until the hospital’s management explained what exactly happened to the missing body parts. Mr Kalibuku said when they queried management, they were told that parts of the body were eaten by rats.

“We were wondering how a rat can eat the whole nose and part of a foot, so we demanded answers from the hospital,” he said. Mr Kalibuku, however, said management engaged the family, after which the two parties resolved the matter amicably. When contacted for a comment over the matter, hospital senior medical superintendent Abidan Chansa said rats bit off parts on the body while it was still in the ward. Dr Chansa said the rats ate parts of the foot and nose.

“We have an infestation of rats at the hospital, so they are the ones which ate the inside of the foot and the nose,” he said. Dr Chansa said the hospital management had a meeting with family members of the dead over the matter. He said the family was not happy to find their relative’s body parts eaten by rodents. Dr Chansa said rat infestation is still a challenge at the health institution but that management is putting measures in place to control the situation.

He said the hospital’s environmental department is working on measures to eliminate rats at the institution. Recently, some patients at the hospital complained of having their food eaten by rats. Kitwe Teaching Hospital was built in 1956 and is one of the oldest health institutions in Zambia. It provides health services to over two million people on the Copperbelt and beyond