HEARTBREAKER
DELCO SETS UP OVERFLOW MORGUE SITE FOR UNCLAIMED VIRUS VICTIMS
Delaware County has set up a temporary morgue at the Emergency Training Center in Darby to allow for additional capacity as COVID-19 continues to pose health and safety issues regarding body retrieval and burials.
“It’s certainly a regional issue,” said Delaware County Director of Emergency Services Tim Boyce Monday. “All the counties are dealing with it at the same time. So, from our department, we’ve reached out to the military that has a mass fatality management team to make sure that where we can provide intermediate storage it’s being done and they’re facilitating some of those transfers.”
A release from Delaware County Public Relations Director Adrienne Marofsky says the state has provided some guidance and storage units for the county as part of a “Statewide Fatality Management Plan.” Boyce said the “interim storage” units the county received as part of a Pennsylvania National Guard-supported task force are refrigerated.
“While there has been an increase in deaths, there is also a delay in families picking up the bodies,” according to the release. “Due to the pandemic, typical funeral ceremonies are not being held and some family members have not been able to travel out of state to retrieve their loved ones.
Boyce said he has been in contact with local funeral directors about the issue, adding that the number one goal in all of the planning, transfers and other issues is to ensure that every deceased person in Delaware County is treated with dignity until their arrangements can be worked out at a personal level.
“Somebody has to claim a body when it dies in a hospital or a facility like a nursing home and that has been very problematic for people that can’t travel, can’t move about different states, so we have just a delay in releasing bodies, is the best way to describe it,” he said. “You don’t want to get into a position where anyone would feel that their loved one was warehoused or not treated respectfully. These are difficult times. We just want to be incredibly respectful.”
Paul Cavanagh, of Cavanagh Family Funeral Homes, said directors are continuing to deliver services, though they have had to reimagine what that looks like.
Cavanagh’s, for instance, has moved to online streaming for most attendees, as Gov. Tom Wolf has barred any gathering of more than 10 people. But that technology has allowed for people to comment and provide solace to loved ones in real time from wherever they may be, said Cavanagh, as well as the ability to revisit the video later in instances where the family has allowed the service to stay up.
“I think everybody realizes that we’re all going through this together and, regardless of whether its Cavanagh’s or any other firm in the area, we’re all trying to do our best to help to any degree we can,” he said. “We’re doing our best to honor the wishes they want within the guidelines we’re getting.”
Cavanagh also commended Medical Examiner Dr. Frederic Hellman for putting protocols and directives in place to help the process along as much as possible, noting his office is probably busy than any of the funeral homes.
Boyce said the resources being supplied by the state for interim storage at the training center may also be needed as a regional resource for other counties. He did not know what capacity looked like at the county’s standard morgue as of Monday and Hellman declined comment, but Marofsky indicated it is approaching capacity.
“I can say there are times when there’s a higher demand than others,” said Boyce. “So you have a busy time right now, you have days of storage that are getting longer, and how do you do that responsibly knowing that this could go on for several weeks or months? It’s kind of forward thinking on this.”