You're in the mortuary forget normal. Normally we don't walk around with masks on all day,
our work throughput is a lot faster than it is at the moment because
at the we're having to swab everybody that we have to postmortem and wait for results to come back.
If they're positive we have to do them separately and it's just a made of massive impact on our
workflow. We have a catchment zone essentially and so and that runs from all the way down to
Looe and Polperro up to Launceston, all the way down to South Brent and Kingsbridge,
and anything within that area we get come to us. So we accept bodies from the community,
we have obviously deceased to come from the hospital down from the wards too.
So I think we get about roughly close to 3,000 a year, and that's going to be probably increased
this year because of what's been going on. There was a day I think it was about three or four weeks
ago actually and we had, we had a weekend where I think it was over half the deaths we had with
COVID. So it was it was a large number and I kind of thought you know this is getting serious now
you know really bad. The one case that really sticks out for me, it wasn't a particularly
old person, and they'd been ill for quite a while and the devastation inside the body was
extraordinary I've not seen anything quite like it.
Because of the the clotting that takes place in the periphery of the organs it's just,
there wasn't an organ left unaffected by that by this disease.
Obviously we work in an environment with sharp instruments and things, caution is a watchword
but that is heightened a great deal by suddenly having to deal with something that
suddenly potentially every patient that comes to the department could end up killing you. We're
used to dealing with high risk cases but this is another level again so being in the post-mortem
room and obviously being halfway through a post-mortem to find out that actually there is a
risk, obviously it was me opening, that's probably when I was most scared. But at the same time
I wasn't, I knew I was protected because I still had my gloves, I had my aprons,
I have a mask so that was my safety measure.The time when the temporary mortuary was muted,
we were already quite full so you were thinking what's going to happen when we do
fill up. We're going to have to therefore use it and then obviously then there was staffing because
there's only the six of us so if one of us comes down, we all go down basically and there's no
other staff available for us. I mean that's quite a big part of our of our work is allowing families
to come in and say their goodbyes. Obviously we hope that the funeral directors are still
offering that service but somebody dying suddenly and unexpectedly often the knee-jerk reaction from
the family is to say "we have to go and see them" to actually believe that they've gone.
And especially now that they can't actually come into hospital with their loved ones,
to then have them die and then not be able to see them, must be terrible. And it is a big part
of our job - to prepare them for being looked at by their relatives and sort of say goodbye.
We have seen young people unfortunately, we've seen 29 year olds, 34 years - people my age -
and it does happen. So the best message would be to just be careful really you never know at the
end of the day. You could be young fit and healthy but you just might not have an immune system that
can handle it. Maybe if people were aware of what we see, they would probably change behaviours and
certain decisions they make. But I just think at the end of the day you know the advice we're
given is for the best for everyone as a whole, and and it's vital that we sort of follow that,
just to keep the impact down really the best we can do. Listen to the science - this is a really
nasty illness if it really gets hold of you and it's so simple to avoid. Wash your hands,
wear a mask, keep your distance. I'm in a position my mother is 89 and has Leukemia and is shielding
at home. I am her bubble and so I'm leaving here and having to go into her shopping once a week and
so I'm still in contact with my mum and the fear of taking that home is,
it's palpable. I really am desperate not to take it home to mother.