Two refrigerated containers are installed in a parking lot at the Rangueil university hospital to relieve the “continuously saturated” mortuary, as the CGT learned on Tuesday, and the management referred to a situation that is “not satisfactory, but temporary.”
Confirming the information from the newspaper La Dépêche du Midi, the union indicated that it had activated an “alert procedure in case of serious and imminent danger.”
“Indignity and unhealthy conditions”
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 mortuary has been continually saturated with autopsies,” which has led to the use of these two containers, deplored the CGT, which denounces the “indignity and unhealthiness” of the “management of the dead in the CHU”. .
“It is an emergency situation that has been going on for two and a half years,” said Sylvain Beduz, CGT staff representative.
During the Covid crisis, the CHU used one truck, to which a second was added at the end of 2022 pending a new building, explained 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 the 2014-2015 academic year,” he explained.
“Meanwhile, Covid has passed (…) We have lost a little time in relation to this project that was delayed but, if everything goes according to plan today, it will be available from January 2024,” Ornella added. Brussels.
“It is certainly an unsatisfactory situation, but in any case temporary,” he stated, flatly denying “that the stretcher bearers are not trained” and specifying that they have “individualized protective equipment.”
The container system made it possible to maintain the temperature necessary to preserve the bodies, “even during the heat wave” this summer, said Norbert Telmon, head of Rangueil’s forensic medicine service. However, he admitted that the containers cannot be converted and generate “a little more handling.”
Source: BFM TV
