Funeral homes adjust to ‘fear of the unknown’
A big worry is keeping one’s workers protected during pandemic
Local funeral directors are intimately familiar with death, impermanence and the fragility of life, but uncertainty created by the coronavirus pandemic is taking a psychological toll on them as they hope for a quick end to the crisis and prepare for the worst.
The pandemic has led them to change some business practices as they seek to protect their workers from the disease, limit the size of funerals, stream services over the internet and contend with travel restrictions and closed borders as they deal with transporting remains to other countries.
“It’s kind of fear of the unknown and not knowing what to expect,” said Gregory Compean, owner of Compean Funeral Home and a licensed funeral director for 30 years. “I’m very glad that here in Houston the numbers haven’t grown out of control. Hopefully, we can get past this curve and get back to some
type of normalcy.”
In New York, which has been hit hardest by the pandemic, Gov. Andrew Cuomo called on out-ofstate funeral directors to help manage the state’s rising death toll earlier this month. In New York City, where a makeshift hospital was assembled in Central Park to help relieve its overwhelmed health care system, refrigerated truck trailers have been used to store the bodies of victims of the disease.
Local funeral directors say they haven’t seen a spike in families seeking their services. But they are watching the trends in other states and preparing for a potential surge in cases and deaths.
“I’m hoping that we do not have this tsunami,” said Glenn Bower, executive director of the Texas Funeral Service Commission, the state agency that regulates the industry. “But in the event that we all of a sudden start to get a larger surge of not only COVID cases, but also COVID deaths, we’re ready for it and we’ve already mobilized the funeral directors throughout the state to help out where we can.”
Because of limited testing for the virus, funeral homes are assuming that families of the deceased might not know if their loved ones died from COVID-19. While funeral homes already adhere to strict standards for handling human remains, many are taking extra precautions to protect workers from the virus.
Jay Carnes, owner of Carnes Funeral Home in South Houston and Texas City, said his biggest worry is protecting his workers during the pandemic. His company is providing workers with extra personal protective equipment such as face shields and masks.
When handling the bodies of those who were known to be infected by COVID-19, workers wear two pairs of latex gloves and wrap those bodies in two bags, instead of one. Sinks, doorknobs, stretchers and car door handles are cleaned and disinfected several times during the day.
“The thing that’s got me most concerned is if someone on our staff gets COVID-19,” Carnes said.
Funeral homes have adhered to Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
guidelines to limit funerals to 10 people or fewer. Many have moved indoor gatherings to gravesites. They’ve made funeral arrangements remotely and, to meet social distancing guidelines, offered large families a series of memorial services at staggered times or a later date at a reduced cost—or none at all.
Beyond funeral homes, related businesses are also preparing to accommodate customers, including Cindy’s List, a funeral concierge service that helps facilitate funeral and estate planning founded by Cecil Ivey Sr.
Ivey’s company serves as an intermediary between families and funeral homes by helping grieving families plan the details of funeral services and negotiating for lower cost products and services such as caskets and cremation on their behalf.
In recent weeks, his business has seen a threefold increase in families seeking information about funeral streaming services to involve family members who can’t be present.
For some funeral homes, travel restrictions have affected the transportation of remains back to the native countries of the deceased for burial, a practice that is not uncommon for immigrant families, especially those in large cities, funeral directors said.
International forwarding of bodies, particularly to Mexico, accounts for about 25 percent of Compean’s business. Some customers have opted for cremation, with the intention of sending the cremated remains back to their country once travel restrictions are lifted.
In these times, Compean said he operates with a focus on keeping family and friends safe as the coronavirus spreads. But the restrictions aimed at slowing the pandemic have at times added anguish to those who have lost loved ones. He recalled an 82year-old woman who recently died of COVID-19, alone in a nursing home. Her family was not allowed to be with her when she died.
“That was very devastating for the family not to be able to be there with their mother after the nursing homes and hospitals stopped letting family members be there,” said Compean. “So the humanistic part of that, that’s very trying on families. It’s difficult.”