IT is little known outside of the province, but the Quezon Medical Center (QMC) which is run by the local government of Quezon, is having serious problems in disposing cadavers of patients who died of COVID-19.
Reporters from several newspapers and TV news stations who went to Lucena City to verify such report and get the side of hospital management were initially shooed away, but were finally accommodated when they insisted and showed pictures of bodies wrapped in plastic and taped with dates of death going back several days. The dead were not in body bags and were left in a pile in one corner of the hospital.
It turned out that the province has only one crematorium and could not accommodate the number of cadavers to be cremated, as the death rate in Quezon due to COVID-19 has increased starting in the first week of September.
‘Since the COVID-19 pandemic is still raging and is not expected to go away in the near future, Quezon province and other local government units should best be prepared for contingencies such as this.’
Dr. Rolando Padre, chief of hospital at QMC, explained they did not anticipate the surge in the number of deaths this month, so that their facilities were stretched to the maximum. Padre said they have only two mortuary freezers.
As of Sept. 21, Quezon province reported 23,902 confirmed cases of COVID-19, with 2,502 considered active. Twelve recent deaths increased the fatality number to 1,164.
It seems apparent that Dr. Padre and Quezon Gov. Danilo Suarez are clueless on how best to handle the increasing number of deaths, even as the city officials of Lucena offered their help by writing to the Department of Health asking permission for relatives of the dead to claim the bodies for immediate burial in the cemeteries in the city and nearby towns.
Suarez said he ordered workers to seal the remains inside body bags, put them in coffins and do a rush welding job prior to burial. He can only promise to increase the province’s cremation capacity and facilities.
DOH Region 4-A Director Eduardo Janairo also assured the news media that the problem of disposing the dead at the Quezon Medical Center is now “under control,” although it is still unclear how he, Padre, and Suarez were able to mitigate the chances of more infections spreading in the province because of poor handling of the dead.
Since the COVID-19 pandemic is still raging and is not expected to go away in the near future, Quezon province and other local government units should best be prepared for contingencies such as this.
