r/nursing • u/Dude_with_Dollas • Dec 01 '24
Nursing Hacks No morgue. Body sitting in the hospital garage until Monday.
I'm on contract up North, with below freezing temps. The hospital I am at does not have a morgue. Funeral home is refusing to come get the body until Monday. Body is now outside, in the garage, where it is below freezing.
415
u/Ok_Expression_2489 Dec 01 '24
Man that sucks in terms of dignity for the (deceased) patient, but it is certainly a hack.
117
Dec 01 '24
Pretty sure the pt doesn’t care at this point
97
u/ILikeFlyingAlot Dec 01 '24
We will see what his Press Ganey says…..
47
u/babygotbooksandback RN 🍕 Dec 01 '24
We got marked down in a Press Gainey survey at a day surgery because…..”it was raining the day he had surgery.”
I couldn’t believe my facility had the audacity to print that. So thankful your surgery went well, sir, and a thousand apologies about the pesky raining weather.
24
u/Playcrackersthesky BSN, RN 🍕 Dec 01 '24
I mean during covid we were stacking body bags on top of each other.
This feels a lot more dignified
161
u/Ursmanafiflimmyahyah RN, HOKA, WAP, CCRNOP, TIG OL BITTIES, badussy Dec 01 '24
If that was my husband.. he would be ecstatic in the afterlife. He’s always out in the garage doing something.
17
277
u/Gretel_Cosmonaut ASN, RN 🌿⭐️🌎 Dec 01 '24
It sounds like you do have a morgue now, it just used to be a garage.
211
u/auraseer MSN, RN, CEN Dec 01 '24
So when you call the news, are you going to tell them there are bodies stashed in the garage, or that people are driving their cars into your morgue?
116
48
Dec 01 '24
No. Call tow service since someone took your employee of the month parking spot.
8
u/chita875andU BSN, RN 🍕 Dec 01 '24
It's not a 0% chance the dead person was, in fact, also an employee at the hospital they died. Small towns don't have too many options for work. Maybe that's what they all get when they die; a few hours parked in the Employee of the Month spot. "Thank you, Clarence, for your 15 years in the Environmental Services Dept."
46
u/Badgerrn88 RN - PCU 🍕 Dec 01 '24
Ah yes, in God’s refrigerator.
I live in Wisconsin, we frequently use our deck this time of year to keep alcoholic drinks cold when we entertain.
My grandparents had an unheated covered sunroom attached to their house, and when I was a kid we’d put holiday leftovers that didn’t fit in the fridge on the porch.
Work smarter, not harder. 🤓
9
u/Magerimoje former ER nurse - 🍀🌈♾️ Dec 01 '24
I'm originally from New England. My mom always used the deck during Christmas as the extra fridge/freezer.
One year, it was almost 60° on Christmas and it screwed up all my mom's prep for the meal 🤣
We still call it the 8 course Christmas because we are things as they were ready because there was no cold storage
9
u/Pretend_Airport3034 HCW- coder/biller Dec 01 '24
My dad puts his pop out on the deck until it gets too cold 😂 I’m in Minnesota
4
80
u/Spudzydudzy RN 🍕 Dec 01 '24
My hospital doesn’t have a morgue, the longest we have held a body was 7 hours while waiting for the funeral home. If I was this persons family member I would be furious.
28
u/purpleelephant77 PCA 🍕 Dec 01 '24
Mine doesn’t either but if the funeral home isn’t going to come get them right away or there is going to be an autopsy or something they are transported to the morgue at the main medical center which is like 10-15 minutes away.
16
u/woolfonmynoggin LPN 🍕 Dec 01 '24
The hospital I just left is only like 1/4 in use, 3/4 of the building is abandoned operating theaters and a nurseries and the morgue and stuff. The morgue doubled as a bomb shelter back in the day
16
u/PunkWithADashOfEmo CNA 🍕 Dec 01 '24
Lots of stuff to go bump in the night
18
u/woolfonmynoggin LPN 🍕 Dec 01 '24
Oh yeah it was pretty haunted. You’d just hear random conversations or codes being run when there was no one there.
6
17
u/drewdrewmd Dec 01 '24
That sucks. I am a pathologist and I believe strongly in maintaining security and dignity of patients even after death. Embalming or autopsy after freezing is difficult and gross (although not as gross as a really warm and decomposed body).
6
u/TheHairball RN - OR 🍕 Dec 01 '24
Oh I worked in a small hospital had a patient that was a organ donor (I got called in case ended at 1:00 in the morning) Called the House Supervisor because there was no way to open the morgue.. Morgue attendant called back and said leave the body outside the morgue in the hallway.
I refused and told the House Supervisor that the attendant needed to come in or I’d call my Director and raise a big stink. He came in and did his Job.3
u/Spudzydudzy RN 🍕 Dec 02 '24
About a week ago we had a pt die, the house sup told me that they were going to put him in a decon shower in the ED (we don’t have a morgue) to open the room for another pt. I was charge and didn’t have patients, I told her that I would bring him to my floor and I’d assign myself for a few hours until the funeral home could get there. The man had already died alone, he didn’t need to be forgotten in a shower in a hectic nasty ED.
37
u/nurseymcnurserton25 Dec 01 '24
Our morgue only fits two. One not so great night we had 4 bodies so we had to break into the cafeteria to get more ice so we could ice down the bodies and stash them in a room.
60
u/wildginger805 MSN, RN Dec 01 '24
This reminds me... If you are on a cruise and there's a sudden, unscheduled ice cream social it's bc someone died and they need the freezer space. (my nursing school bestie had been a cruise ship performer)
34
u/woolfonmynoggin LPN 🍕 Dec 01 '24
All modern cruise ships have morgues now. Too many elderly people take a cruise as their last hurrah to not.
12
7
u/holytarar Dec 01 '24
Or giving away free flowers (at least according to the tv show Doctor Odyssey).
19
u/Misa7_2006 Dec 01 '24
Let me guess, the morgue was right next to the cafeteria. Why is the morgue always right in the room next to the cafeteria? Almost every place I have work at, it happens.
32
34
u/Miss_Ally Phlebotomist 🍕 Dec 01 '24
Because they probably use one system for freezing two separate rooms.
4
u/junkforw Dec 01 '24
Level 1 hospital I used to work at had a small morgue. We would sometimes stack.
-1
u/txcross BSN, RN 🍕 Dec 01 '24
Our morgue has three sections that via the magic of double deckering can hold two bodies in each of the three chambers. These spots are number #1-#6. These numbers are on the outside of square stainless sheild that reflect brightly. Besides the numbers the doors each have a dry erase board. I'm sure the intent was to just right the patient's name to make retrieval quicker. Well that gets done along with a breif often touching message from the nurse who helped transport our former patient to the morgue. By contrast to the far right is one shiny stainless steel door with a sign stating>400. Really kinda sad if you think about it -- even after you die the Hospital will still fat shame the patient.
12
11
u/GypsyRN9 Dec 01 '24
Reminds me of a patients burial story. Elder passed and I called the family to notify them. Called me back in a little while to tell me they are on their way to pick up grandpa so they can “chunk him in the ground.” (I could hear the backhoe in the background.) This was in the middle of the night in a rural area of the south. Me and the house sup scrambled to contact the coroner to see if this was legal. Yep, as long as they are buried within 48 hours. They showed up in a pickup loaded with guys, wrapped him in a sheet, and hauled him off. It was both amusing and horrifying at the same time.
8
u/pyro_pugilist RN - ER 🍕 Dec 01 '24
I worked at a smaller community hospital(2 floors) as a tech and we had a morgue with 2 slots. Then as a nurse I went to a hospital with 8 floors and was dumb founded that the morgue had only 3 slots!! Apparently the security would have to constantly rotate which bodies were being refrigerated and the others just sat out.
10
u/Popular_Item3498 RN - OR 🍕 Dec 01 '24
Here in the Midwest the garage/porch also doubles as a fridge for chilling wine and storing holiday party leftovers.
6
38
u/Most_Ambassador2951 RN - Hospice 🍕 Dec 01 '24 edited Dec 01 '24
When my husband died we couldn't reach the funeral home that was transporting him(he was donated for medical research). We are in eastern WA state, their answering service was on the east coast and there was a massive phone outage going on. We needed him in their care within 12 hours max, ideally 8 or less though. At the 6 hour mark I suggested they move him to the outside patio. It was below zero. It wasn't going to bother him a bit, just offend his daughter most likely(which, to be fair, I didn't much care about at that point).
Edit - he had a very complex medical hx and the neuros he worked with broached the subject with him, as it was at least partially due to agent orange exposure. He loved the idea of maybe helping them learn so others wouldn't have to go through Parkinsons in the future. I loved his heart and soul, his mind and how compassionate he was, always considering others in his decisions. He still left the decision to me, if I didn't feel OK with giving him to others after he died, he would have been OK with it, but I felt a bigger draw to honor him by doing what he wanted. I would do it all over again for him, he was worth every minute of our life together.
A benign familial tremor, brain aneurysm(repaired), dx with Parkinsons during surgery recovery, leukemia, lewy bodies, every type of skin cancer... it was an interesting ride for sure. OSHU along with the VA PD research center saw him jointly.
15
7
7
u/workhard_livesimply RN - Retired 🍕 Dec 01 '24
This occurs and has been occurring for eons. It's the ugly truth of healthcare.
5
5
12
u/nursemarcey2 BSN, RN 🍕 Dec 01 '24
Decades ago in the nursing home, a lady passed on the foggiest night and her funeral home understandably wasn't going to risk life and limb to pick her up at that hour when she was getting no more deceased before morning. A crusty nursing assistant was definitely messing with my 17 year old self. It was that moment when you know you can do health care. But also I'm from an area where deer are commonly stored in the garage until you can get around to processing them.
4
u/joshy83 BSN, RN 🍕 Dec 01 '24
I work in LTC and we had to send someone to our garage on Christmas once. 🤷🏻♀️
5
u/Playcrackersthesky BSN, RN 🍕 Dec 01 '24
We have an unclaimed body in our morgue for 9+ months. I’m pretty sure she’s soup now. She’s triple bagged and every two weeks security has to go and change out the outermost bag. (Which they 1000% do not get paid enough for.)
I don’t believe in the afterlife but man; if my dad died and I knew he was going to a small morgue next to a woman who was essentially a bag of goo I’d be so disturbed. All the germs mingling.
3
u/crowislanddive Dec 02 '24
I was hit on at age 23 by a funeral director while I was trying to make arrangements for my aunt. A dear friend said, “well, at least your aunt, Mary wasn’t the only thing that was stiff there that day.” I’m pretty sure nothing could have made me feel better that day except that.
3
u/vividtrue BSN, RN 🍕 Dec 02 '24
It's unfortunate that both life and death are unaffordable for Americans.
2
u/Lostallthefucksigive BSN, RN 🍕 Dec 01 '24
At least it’s cold out? 🤷🏼♀️ the coroner can deal with the thaw
3
u/Danimalistic Dec 01 '24
During Covid, the tiny band aid station I worked at only had a 2 body morgue, and both spots were occupado when we had a couple of 6am codes roll in back to back. There were suddenly 2 new “tables” complete with table cloths, place settings, disposable dinnerware, and leftover floral arrangements in the EMS area (the ER was so small that you could see the whole department once you walked through the triage room) until the ME could come pick up the deceased. I mean, i have to give the manager credit; it wasn’t the worst idea on the fly to hide/hold bodies when there was literally nowhere else to put them.
1
1
u/irlvnt14 Custom Flair Dec 01 '24
My mother n law at the time, lived down south and we she died my husband brothers nephews dug the grave
1
567
u/Dude_with_Dollas Dec 01 '24
CORRECTION: The body is outside in the maintenance garage.
Update: So I just learned the family was the one who refused the funeral home service. Can't afford it. Coroner refused to pick up the body until Monday.