Ahmad Amami no longer returns home at the end of his working hours with a smile on his face. Instead, he is perturbed and rather worried: He contracted a contagious skin disease because of the unsafe environment he’s working in. Amami deals with corpses at the Benghazi Medical Center and he does so without the right protective equipment.

Ahmad Amami no longer returns home at the end of his working hours with a smile on his face. Instead, he is perturbed and rather worried: He contracted a contagious skin disease because of the unsafe environment he’s working in. Amami deals with corpses at the Benghazi Medical Center and he does so without the right protective equipment.

Soon after rumors about the skin disease began to spread, we went to the center to investigate. The Center opened in September 2009 with a capacity of 270 beds and it is also accredited as an educational institution. Despite this, all our questions there led to a single answer, one that might make a good movie title – something like “the silent killer”.

We walked through the Center, which employs around 2,433 locals. Escorted by some doctors we reached the morgue where Amami met us.

Amami, 45, is in charge of the morgue here. He first started working here as a volunteer during the revolution of 2011. There were a lot of dead bodies then – so many, in fact, they would often be stacked in the corridors.

Workers tried to leave deadly morgue

A lot of new employees leave the job almost immediately, Amami says. A new recruit is barely there for a couple of weeks before they flee. The reason is the lack of protective equipment, according to Amami. Nor are morgue workers paid any extra for the risks they take, such as exposing themselves to potential disease or infections.

Amami has three assistants who are untrained but he needs more – especially because every time there is more fighting, there are more dead bodies to take care of. At one stage there were 266 bodies in the morgue.

Amami says he’s tried to leave the post several times, requesting a transfer – and particularly after he contracted the skin disease. But his request was turned down because of a lack of other workers who could do the job.

Next we spoke with Reem Bokmar, who is in charge of controlling infections at the Benghazi Medical Center. She explains that the morgue refrigerator is made up of two rooms with four compartments, which are cooled to between zero and two degrees centigrade. This means that they are not fit to keep bodies for longer than 24 hours. And the six-drawer freezer where dead bodies could be kept for longer doesn’t work. In fact, it never worked, even when the Center first opened.

The problem is made even worse because of unidentified bodies which can’t be buried until they’ve been cleared by various agencies, like the Ministry of Justice and the Interior, as well as the pathologist’s office.

Additionally, Bokmar notes, the employees working at the morgue are administrative staff with no nursing training and they don’t know how to deal with dead bodies. Some of the dead bodies that arrive at the hospital are decomposing already – this can be dangerous as some diseases don’t die when the person does but remain on the body.

“Silent killer” found during 2013 lab tests

Lack of sterilization equipment and body bags can also cause dangerous odors to emit from bodies. “The bad smell has also reached other sections of the medical center, outside of the morgue,” Bokmar explains.

As for the so-called “silent killer” Bokmar knows that when she took samples from autopsy tables in 2013, she found there was a dangerous type of bacteria that caused blood toxicity present. Failure to treat anyone infected quickly would result in death.

Amami was not infected with this, Bokmar said. He had a parasite, scabies. Of far more concern to Bokmar was the bacteria she found. Some of the kinds of bacteria found in hospitals have become what are known as “super bugs” – that is, resistant to antibiotics. There is concern that these kinds of bacteria may still be present elsewhere in the Center.

Aladdin Salabi, a member of faculty in the Department of Environmental Health at the University of Benghazi’s School of Public Health, confirms that the 2013 survey found some dangerous bacteria in the medical center.

This included types that were particularly dangerous for patients who are immune deficient, or had diabetes or respiratory diseases. It also included at least two strains that are resistant to antibiotics.

Engineer: “Morgue needs to be closed”

Ahmad Rubaie, an engineer in the hospital, believes that the building itself doesn’t meet the standards for keeping corpses here. He thinks that the basic problem lies in the design of the building and that this has led to the spread of disease.

It is about the state of the equipment, the drainage and ventilation, and the refrigeration and air conditioning, Rubaie explains. Additionally some of the equipment has been installed without getting proper planning permission.

In fact Rubaie believes the best solution for the Center would be to close the morgue – at least temporarily, until the place has been properly cleaned.

All of which leads us to the question: How are the workers here protected, in cases of severe infection?

Najla Mahdawi, who heads the Occupational Health Department and staff clinic, says that morgue workers are only classified as administrative staff – a big mistake, she says. And Mahdawi also notes that her department’s responsibilities only involve a check up of potential staff before they sign contracts.

As we concluded our interviews and left the Benghazi Medical Center we met with Ahmad Amami again.

“We started working here as volunteers for the sake of our country,” he told us sadly. “Now we’re leaving it with a contagious disease!”