I worked for thirteen years in one hospital where the morgue was on the first floor, tucked anonymously back behind the lab and pathology. It had direct elevator access from a service elevator that had doors on both sides and would only open onto the morgue if a special key was inserted (otherwise, you got off onto a small lobby where the employees clocked in.)
This hospital had a really small basement that was taken up mostly by central supply. It’s the only one I’ve ever worked in where the morgue was not in the basement. This particular hospital is actually a hotel now, owned and operated by St. Louis University! I wouldn’t stay in it for all the money in the world…
The name of the hotel is Water Tower Inn. It’s the former Incarnate Word Hospital (it also went by the names Lafayette-Grand Hospital and Compton Heights Hospital, depending on who owned it at the time) at Highway 44 and Grand, directly across the highway from the Compton Heights reservoir and water tower.
It always was a small neighborhood hospital serving The Hill area mostly. It ran about 200 beds at maximum capacity and it was never really full. It was independent when I started work there in 1985, and much later it was bought by the Deaconess folks and then by Tenet, who closed it rather than maintain it. It was a good place to work when it was still doing well.
When I went to University, the hospital there had the morgue on the first basement level. It was clearly indicated by the signs on that level that tell you where everything is.
Why wouldn’t you stay in a hotel that used to be a hospital? Because people died there? I bet people have died in many of the hotels you’ve stayed in, if you’ve ever stayed in a large one. There is an apartment condo complex in the city where I live that used to be a hospital.
Because the hospital in question is one I used to work at. And I can tell you exactly what body substances ended up where, where in the kitchen the night shift supervisor saw several fat rats strolling casually around, in which patient room a colleague of mine nearly got shot by a man on a rooftop across the way who was trying to target his ex-wife who was in for minor surgery, etc etc. Too many long shifts spent in the place, basically…and no desire to go back to that or remember too much of it.
During the period I went to Southeast Missouri State University, one of the dorms was the old St. Francis Hospital, which had been replaced by a newer building across town. I had friends who lived there and occasionally I visited. It was an old red-brick building in the ‘St. Elsewhere’ vein, with wide terrazzo hallways that echoed and the call light system still in place. There were still iron lungs in storage in the attic area. The University had done almost nothing to remodel or rehab and had taken it over lock, stock and barrel. The morgue was known to be a shut-off area that was back of the cafeteria in the basement. This led to a lot of jokes about the food…typical college humor.
I hear it’s since been torn down. I’m not too surprised, there was no maintenance being done on the place.
Not at all. In indonesia, most hospital commonly places the morgue at the rear side or back end of hospital area, but there’s an access to the roadway. The morgues is on one buliding, separated with other buildings.
Morgue is usualy marked with written ‘Kamar Mayat’, ‘Kamar Jenazah’, or ‘Ruang Jenazah’. It written with variation of fontsize but mostly placed above it doorgate.
But, since modernization of era, where international hospital era comes to Indonesia, it places the morgue in the basement.
So what’s the similar between placed in the back end with in the lower ground?
The similar is those area are almost zero from people activity or more. Consequently, morgue has to have own street/access to the outside as commuter vehicles like coroner or hearse.
All of the morgues I’ve seen were in the basement. Unfortunately so were the computer facilities, which is why I got to be in hospital basements. In the older hospitals, the computer rooms had to be put where there was available space. I assume morgues were around before computers, and considered when the hospital was built, so there must be better reasons for having the morgues there.
I recently interviewed for a job at a hospital for a maintenance-related position. The head of the department was interviewing me and was giving me the tour of the entire engineering department which was located in the basement. The last stop of the tour was my soon-to-be office. Next to my office was an unmarked door. I asked him, “Who’s office is that?” and was told, “That’s the rear entrance of the morgue.”