Yes, my first ward there.
in the room there is a door hinged at the bottom, it is marked LAUNDRY. it is not.
Funny tangent: my parents met over a dead body in a hospital. The story goes that a patient passed away and my mom (RNA back then) and my dad (Orderly) were sent to take care of the body. Apparently my dad let my mom do all the work and she thought “This guy is an ass” and brushed snottily past him out the door. Apparently he then took his pen out of his pocket, poked her in the ribs and said “You’re cute.”
Back to your thread now…
A few years ago I was walking though a hospital and saw a guy in a dark room with a toe tag. Later on I asked someone (a friend) that worked there about that. They said that when they took someone down to the morgue they don’t cover them up, they just push them around. According to him, if they just push the person around, they look like they’re asleep or under anesthesia, but if they cover them it’s pretty obvious what’s going on and that’s when people get a bit squiked out.
Only if the top layer can’t take a person’s weight.
In the one my father worked at, there were few enough patients that most of the moving could be done during off-hours. Patients who were known to be close to death would get individual rooms, which again made discretion easier (my father and my sister-in-law’s father died in the same room, the one nicknamed “the suite” because it’s extra large and has the best views in the hospital). The surgeries are in their own floor, the only patients you find there are unconscious and there will be no visitors.
I work in a 300 bed hospital in the American west. The morgue is now rarely used. The funeral homes usually come and pick up their customers directly from the room. The hospital and the funeral homes both have special carts, that look more like food and beverage carts than what they are…most humans are only 10 or so inches thick, and easier to conceal than most would think.
My old job was also at a 300-bed hospital. I would usually come to work through the back entrance, and there would often be a funeral home loading a body into a hearse. Most homes used a maroon velvet drape over the stretcher, but there was one that used a fancy embroidered quilt, and to me, that was a bit unnerving.
From what I’ve seen in a nursing home / hospice for Alzheimer’s patients, that’s how it works there, too. The funeral home brings their own gurney, or borrows the facility’s, and brings the dear departed out to the van under a sheet. Any resident who still has enough faculties to understand and be bothered is distracted or kept inside.
Yeah, unnerving. Since everybody involved in the whole process seems like they could care less…the more they fancy it up…the more creepy it gets.
My mom died in a nursing home. The guys from the funeral home came within an hour, and asked us to step out of the room. When they took her, she had been placed in what I assume was a body bag (black), covered with a sheet. Nurses went up the hallway and closed patient room doors before she was taken through the hallway.
Also, as for autopsies… The county coroner does most of those, in their own facilities, based on certain criteria, mostly based on age. Also, sometimes the family wants a private autopsy, but that is also done offsite. The only thing commonly done at the hospital is the “harvest” (I really hate the term, but others love it, because of the serious $$ involved) which refers to organ and tissue donation. This is done in the OR, for sterility reasons. There is an autopsy table in the morgue, but it is even more rarely used.
At any hospital I’ve worked in - and there have been several - the deceased is tagged and wrapped in a shroud before leaving the room on a gurney. A plain sheet is draped over the shrouded body and it is wheeled to the service elevator. There is no effort to clear the hallways or otherwise hide what is happening (although side trips through the cafeteria are frowned upon).
mmm
This just gave me an idea for a prank next time I go to a Hospital. Just hope I don’t fall asleep waiting for the prankee and end up on a refrigerator.
You obviously haven’t visit my local Walmart. I would say most people there are three times as thick.:eek:
Thanks for the info. I once looked this up for fiction writing purposes and I got the impression that the body was on a much lower platform under the top. Seemed to make it difficult to move it around. The removable shell seems more practical.
Dr. Cox: Write this down, newbie: If you push around a stiff, nobody’ll ask you to do anything.
Yes, thank you all for your replies, this was very interesting. I guess I thought there were some kind of standard body handling practices, now I see its pretty much hospital by hospital.
Also, thanks for the correcting my misconception about morgues and autopsies. It was a cheesy, campy but very entertaining movie. It did motivate me to learn something new, which is always a good thing.
I really did think that pushing a covered body down the halls was dramatic license. I guess that was the only “real” part of the movie.
I volunteered as a male “candy striper” for three years at a Seventh Day Adventist hospital in the Los Angeles area from 1980 to early 1984. It was a blast. As a late-20’s single guy, I met many eligible nurses, which was the whole idea. But to answer the OP question, when such duty was required and I was on duty I tagged the patient with the classic toe-tag and had a nurse or two help me lift the patient onto a regular gurney. Covered with a sheet, no subterfuge devices present, I wheeled the patient into the nearest elevator and down to level B2, the morgue. No effort was made to hide the unavoidable fact that people die – and people in hospitals die often.
My 500 hours as a volunteer (under no duress) was a great experience. If you are a single guy and want to meet women, I recommend it. If you are a single woman and want to meet guys, maybe not. Sorry if that sounds sexist, but let’s face it, most nurses are women, even in 2014.
Hasn’t it be renamed “organ recovery” now? And isn’t it usually done after brain death, but before life support is switched off (which would necessitate an OR rather than a morgue)?
Have I mentioned before how much I love this forum? :o