New York – The mayor of New York, Bill de Blasio, considered Thursday the “finding of dozens of bodies in trucks without refrigeration in front of a funeral home” abominable “and” totally unacceptable “, but defended that it is an isolated case and that the city is adequately dealing with the large number of COVID-19 deaths.
“It was a horrible incident, it is inconceivable. I cannot understand how they let this happen,” De Blasio said when asked at a press conference about the situation uncovered at a Brooklyn district funeral home.
The Police of New York, after receiving calls from neighbors warning of the bad smell, discovered on Wednesday about fifty bodies stored in trucks of the U-Haul chain, normally rented for hours for removals, and on the floor of the funeral home, with some corpses in a state of decomposition.
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De Blasio considered the situation “unacceptable” and recalled that funeral homes have an obligation to treat “with dignity” those they serve.
“I have no idea how a funeral home could let this happen,” insisted the mayor, who recalled that the City Council is supporting all funeral homes that report difficulties, so this should have alerted the authorities of the overflow that suffered .
As he said, after this episode formulas will be sought to improve communication and ensure that nothing like this is repeated.
De Blasio, in any case, stressed that this is not a general problem and that, for the most part, funeral homes are adequately managing the difficult situation created by the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus pandemic, which has killed in the city more than 14,000 people.
“The vast majority are doing an admirable job,” said the Democratic politician.
In the face of the pandemic, New York hospitals, morgues, and funeral homes have in many cases been forced to use refrigerated trucks to hold bodies while waiting for families to bury loved ones.
In the case of the Brooklyn funeral home, the bodies appear to have been in the rental trucks, without refrigeration, for more than a week, in a state of decomposition in some cases, which was what caused the bad smell, according to sources at Police to local media.
Agents believe most of the bodies were from people killed by the coronavirus.
