An hospital room at Sinai-Grace Hospital in Detroit is being used as a storage room for a pile of bodies brought into the hospital’s parking lot. Photos of the piled up bodies went viral on social media.
Two other emergency room workers confirm the photos are an accurate portrayal of the scene taking place at the hospital during early April, during one 12-hour shift they describe as overwhelming. The ER workers told the CNN.
One of the rooms typically used for studies on sleeping habits, was used to store bodies because morgue staff did not work at night, and the morgue was full.
“All I know is we ran out of beds to keep our patients on so we couldn’t spare any for the bodies,” said one ER worker, who witnessed the bodies in the room.
In the photo two bodies were put on a bed, side by side, and another body is placed in a chair next to the bed. All three bodies are in white body bags.
“It was because we hadn’t gotten our outside freezers yet, so those rooms had beds and the morgue people don’t work over night,” said the ER worker.
In response to this incident, hospital authorities decided to order portable refrigerator storage units to store the bodies.
“Patients who pass away at our hospital are treated with respect and dignity, remaining on-site until they can be appropriately released,” hospital spokesman Brian Taylor said.
He added, “Like hospitals in New York and elsewhere, we have secured additional resources such as mobile refrigeration units to help temporarily manage the capacity issue caused by COVID-19.”
The hospital had seen spike in the number of patients in early April, however the case load now has slightly dropped to a more manageable number.
