Southern Regional Morgue Malfunctions; Brings Additional Grief to Family
A family says that something went terribly wrong at the Southern Regional Hospital’s morgue last week and it caused a lot of pain during the grieving of their loved one. Today, we spoke with Karen Lewis, who lives in the U.S.A., and she told us that her mother’s body was at the morgue for about one week. But by the time they received her body for burial, it was already decomposing. We checked with the Southern Regional Hospital and they admitted that there was a malfunction of the morgue’s freezer and that they addressed it immediately. Andrea Polanco spoke with Lewis today before she departed Belize. Here’s that story.
Juliana Palacio Castillo
Andrea Polanco, Reporting
Karen Lewis came to Belize on March eighteenth to bury her mother and she says that the Southern Regional Hospital brought them additional grief and stress after her mother passed away. Seventy-five-year-old Juliana Palacio Castillo died on Thursday March fourteenth at the hospital and her body was later stored in the morgue. Four days later, Lewis says her family got a call from the hospital asking them to remove the body because they didn’t have enough space. But the family says they didn’t have anywhere to store the corpse and informed the hospital that they were already working with a timeline for their funeral. But shortly after on that same day they got another disturbing phone call about the morgue and her mother’s body.
Karen Lewis, Daughter of Deceased
“We got another call from a very close family member who was there and was being told that my mother’s body was decomposing in the morgue. So, she accessed the morgue and she saw the condition of the body. Basically we were called and told that this is what was going on and that they were going to make an attempt to try and save the remains that was there. I don’t know if it was a shot or something but they tried to do something. But the thing that was even more troubling considering that they said they needed the morgue and the space, it wasn’t plugged in. The first question that I asked was that is it working or not working? And they said no, it is working. It is just not plugged in. That is just bizarre to me and very, very disturbing.”
Lewis says the following day on March nineteenth, they met with the administrator of the Southern Regional Hospital Ernestina Hill – she shares how that meeting went.
Karen Lewis
Karen Lewis
“We told her what our concerns were and she said, ‘no, it is not your mom, it is someone else,’ which is just as horrible. And she says that there is not really a problem but I can assure you that it is okay. There are times that we have to plug the refrigerator off because the ice builds up. Anyway, she tried to settle our fears and our concerns and at that time I told her that we were just unhappy with how the nurse had handled it and she said it was a call that she had delegated to a nurse and I said it is obvious that they need sensitivity training. This is not how you deal with people on a whole, worse a grieving family.”
A few days later, Lewis and her family received distressing news – that her mother’s body was already decomposing. The family was not able to give her the send off that they wanted to because they had to do a closed coffin funeral – family and friends couldn’t view the body. Lewis says this brought on additional suffering for her grieving family members.
Karen Lewis
“When the undertakers got the body in the wee hours of the morning of the twenty-second. They started to prepare the body about two or three in the morning and by six we started to get these alarming calls about six and seven in the morning saying that we are on the way with the body but the body was in such a bad shape that you will not be able to view it. It just created this – it was just sheer grief. We were just all grief stricken. It was just a horrible thing. So, she was brought there and we couldn’t see her.”
Andrea Polanco
“Because you couldn’t open the box?”
Karen Lewis
“No. He said I strongly recommend that you don’t open it. His description – this was the Longsworth Funeral Services – because he physically came to see us the morning of Friday the twenty-second. He said she is very, very swollen and distended to the point where it could be like almost disfiguring. It was pretty bad. It is like it is a nightmare. We are so incensed by people having to experience something so horrible. And I just pray to God nobody ever has to go through it. My mother is gone. There is nothing we can do but I have all the time in the world. I am going to see this through.”
Andrea Polanco
“The funeral service said that she was already decomposing?”
Karen Lewis
“Yes. She was already in a state of decomposition. You have someone who has passed on. We expect that remains are going to be handled in a dignified manner. It is so very upsetting and so emotional.”
Today, we stopped in at the hospital for a comment from the hospital’s administrator Ernestina Hill but we didn’t meet her. We spoke with Regional Manager Dr. Franelda Gutierrez who informed us that she would be able to comment on the matter later today. This evening over the phone told us that,“ the Southern Regional Hospital fully understands the sentiments and reasons why the family went to the media.” Gutierrez stated that, “the freezer malfunction shouldn’t have happened.” She said that they immediately took steps to correct the situation so it doesn’t repeat in the future. Lewis says that since that ordeal they have not heard from the Southern Regional Hospital. They are filing a formal complaint and will take further action.
Karen Lewis
“Nobody has contacted us. We have not been there. I don’t think that they are ally. I don’t think they did anything to try and diffuse the situation. I don’t think they did anything that would have been in good standing or good faith to try to make a situation that went so horribly wrong – maybe not make it right but at least to try to make an effort to say that they were doing something. We never got a call from the administrator or nobody there. We are filing a formal complaint and we plan on taking legal action.”
Reporting for News Five, I’m Andrea Polanco.
