It’s not just hospital services that are overflowing: this is also the case from the morgue to the Toulouse University Hospital. Two refrigerated containers are installed in a parking lot at the Rangueil site to relieve the “continuously saturated” morgue, we learned from the CGT on Tuesday, with management referring to a “not satisfactory, but temporary” situation.
Confirming everyday information La Dépêche du Midithe union indicated that it had triggered an “alert procedure in the event of serious and imminent danger”.
“Indignity and unsanitary conditions” for the CGT
The CGT stressed that the stretcher bearers transferring the deceased into these two containers (one connected to a truck, the other placed on the ground) did so “without any protection” and “without any training”. At the Toulouse University Hospital, two structures welcome deceased patients, in Purpan (west) and in Rangueil (south), where the medico-legal institute is also located.
“For several years, the Rangueil morgue has been continually saturated with autopsies”, which has led to the use of these two containers, deplored the CGT which denounces the “indignity and unsanitary nature” of the “management of the dead at the CHU”.
“It’s an emergency situation that has dragged on for two and a half years,” said Sylvain Beduz, CGT staff representative.
A temporary situation for management
During the Covid-19 crisis, the CHU used one truck, to which a second was added at the end of 2022 while waiting for a new building, said the director of the Rangueil site, Ornella Brussels. “The University Hospital wanted to anticipate and adapt its capacity to this increase in activity that we began to feel in 2014-2015,” she explained.
“In the meantime, Covid has passed (…) We lost a little time in relation to this project which was delayed but which will, if everything goes as planned today, be made available from January 2024” , added Ornella Brussels.
“It is a situation which is certainly not satisfactory, but in any case temporary”, she affirmed, completely denying “the fact that the stretcher bearers are not trained” and specifying that they have “the individualized protective equipment”.
The container system made it possible to maintain the temperature necessary for the preservation of the bodies, “including during the heatwave” this summer, further argued Norbert Telmon, head of the Rangueil forensic medicine service. However, he admitted that the containers cannot be converted and generate “a little more handling”.