Thammasat University Hospital needs shipping containers to help overwhelmed morgue

Thammasat University Hospital, located in central Thailand’s Pathum Thani Province, is running out of room in its morgue and is now looking for shipping containers to store the remains of Covid victims.

The hospital posted on Facebook to say it anticipates Covid cases to surpass 10,000 soon, as health officials increase their testing efforts in high risk areas.

The Thammasat hospital has seen more and more patients coming in for Covid treatment. 4 Covid patients even required CPR at the emergency room prior to being transferred to the ICU, says the post.

Further, the hospital keeps accepting referrals from throughout Pathum Thani and other areas. This had led to their morgue being overwhelmed with autopsy requests, some of whom died at the hospital, and some who died at home. The hospital then has to determine which deaths can be attributed to Covid.

This influx of bodies means the hospital has to rent 2, and maybe more, storage containers to hold the bodies.

The hospital’s Facebook post let the public know they wanted to be transparent about what was going on. It also went on to say that in order to prevent Covid from spreading at the hospital, a 150 square metre negative pressure chamber has been erected in the emergency room as this is where patients who have a high risk of infection are kept away from other patients.

Dr Prasit Watanapa, the dean at the Faculty of Medicine of Siriraj Hospital is pleading with the unvaccinated public to not procrastinate getting a vaccine and to just get inoculated. He says most critically ill patients only had 1 dose or 0. He then added that waiting for a “superior” vaccine was “not worth the risk” and people should just get vaccinated as soon as they can.

SOURCE: The Phuket News