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The Victor Babes Infectious Disease Hospital of Timisoara has recently concluded a contract with a funeral home, which will provide the sanitary unit with a 50 COVID-seat mobile morgue for the bodies of those whose family are positive to SARS-CoV-2 and are in self-isolation and cannot pick up the deceased relatives, hospital manager Cristian Oancea told AGERPRES on Tuesday.
The pulmonologist stated that the hospital's own morgue has a capacity of only five places, which was divided between the COVID and non-COVID cases, but given the severity of the situation and the increase in the number of deceased, a civilized solution to preserve their bodies had to be found.
"Our hospital has a morgue limited to five places, but bearing in mind that we have both COVID and non-COVID patients, we had to share it. Until a few months ago it wasn't necessary, it was just non-COVID. Since the deaths started, we split it into two, with separate circuits, COVID and non-COVID and allocated two seats for COVID deaths. Given that we now have severe and very severe forms of the disease in the hospital and having an increased mortality incidence in these forms, we had to find a quick form to provide a civilised and decent service. Bearing in mind that we cannot put the dead on the floor, we turned on 9 November to a funeral home that found this solution and started a collaboration for a limited time. I understand it has a capacity of up to 50 places. There is another aspect: bearing in mind that many of the families who had relatives admitted to us were in isolation and had no one to take over those bodies, we had to store them in a civilized space, because the participants were not allowed to leave the self-isolation," Dr. Cristian Oancea detailed.
He explained that a civilized solution had to be taken quickly, no more tenders could be expected for purchasing containers.
"We've had those 10 deaths, but only two places in the morgue for COVID and what were we to do with the other eight?! We have made this decision of civilized morgue, in which we have also internal procedures, in which the forensic goes there to identify bodies with the family," said Cristian Oancea.
The mobile morgue will be located at the CFR stadium, where an external section of the Military Clinical Hospital in Timiosara operates, for COVID cases.
