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Member of the QEH staff showing the sturdy shrouds that the bodies are placed in.

QEH: Morgue experience ‘virtually impossible’

11/5/2009

VIRTUALLY impossible!

That sums up the Queen Elizabeth Hospital (QEH) administration’s sentiments of the continuing saga surrounding a man’s claim of being placed in the morgue while unconscious, then subsequently “walking out” from the facility.

The account of Reynzill Lorenzo Scantlebury has caused quite a stir after it appeared in another section of the press and was subsequently discussed on call-in programmes. The series of events has given rise to a barrage of negative comments about day-to-day operations at the island’s premier medical facility.

During a guided tour of the hospital’s morgue yesterday morning, the facility’s standard operating procedure was explained to the Barbados Advocate, calling into question several aspects of Scantlebury’s account of his experience.

“When the doctor certifies the person dead, the patient is prepared by nurses. Their toes are tied as well as tagged, hands secured at the side, chins strapped, eyes are closed and placed in the shroud (large body bag) and zipped. The material of the bag as well as how the body is secured would make it very difficult for a person, if by some miracle resuscitated, to breach this bag,” said Louise Bobb, Acting Director of Support Services, who also gave the media a close-up look at the bags.

Bobb also confirmed that it was not hospital policy to place corpses in pampers, contrary to Scantlebury’s account of waking up wearing only a disposable diaper.

In the original account, Scantlebury related that he “started kicking and this thing I was in slide out like a drawer”. However, during yesterday’s tour, the Barbados Advocate learned that bodies are placed into the morgue’s refrigerators “feet first”, and the doors then clasped shut. The refrigerators, which are about two feet in length vertically, operate at just above freezing temperature – approximately two to three degrees Celsius.

It was explained that within such close confines and frigid temper-atures, it would require a Herculean effort for an individual to kick open the door.

With regard to Scantlebury’s account about seeing a hospital employee dressed in white eating inside the morgue when he woke up, the only tables observed in the main area are used for the temporary placement of corpses, and there were no chairs in the room. Bobb also told the Barbados Advocate that morgue technicians do not dress in white.

QEH CEO Dr. Dexter James also told the Barbados Advocate that there is a closed-circuit television camera system monitoring the area of the morgue and surrounding departments on a 24-hour basis and indicated the location of the camera system with respect to the morgue. He maintained that Scantlebury was not observed in that area at any time when the video was reviewed.

Meanwhile, in terms of patient admissions to the hospital, the Head of the QEH’s Accident & Emergency (A&E) Department, Dr. Chaynie Williams, said there was only one record of admission for Scantlebury to the QEH in recent times and it was on September 20, 2009 at 4:57 p.m. He was treated and discharged early the following day.

In explaining how someone seeking medical attention at the QEH is deemed to have been “admitted”, Dr. Williams explained that a patient does not have to be assigned to a ward to be considered admitted.

She said whenever a patient seeks medical attention through the QEH’s A&E Department, which was the case with Scantlebury on September 20, such instances are also considered admissions.

With respect to one eye-witness claim of having seen Scantlebury in “room 11 or 12”, Dr. Williams said rooms 11 and 12 are actually in the asthma bay, not on the wards.

Since the original publication of Scantlebury’s account, and the QEH’s rejection of his claims, it has been reported that Scantlebury has sought counsel and may take legal action against the health-care facility.

(CM/RB)

Indices

as of close 9/15/2009


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