Makeshift morgues and field hospital sites in Sydney identified
Frozen food factories, industrial warehouses and even pubs have been identified as sites for morgues across Sydney to deal the COVID-19 deaths, while another two venues have been earmarked as sites for “pop-up” hospitals.
NSW
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Makeshift morgues and hospital sites are being planned for across the state as emergency services make sure NSW can cope with COVID-19’s worst case scenario.
Different regions have enacted their own emergency management plans that dictate how police, health and other frontline agencies respond if the coronavirus crisis worsens.
Taking guidance from the rate of infection and hospitalisation overseas, the contingency plans have identified locations for makeshift morgues, including frozen goods factories, industrial warehouses and even pubs.
“Obviously there is a shortage of places for the deceased should there be a mass outbreak in any one area so commands need to be ready,” one police source said.
“Some of the things we consider are large factories, frozen food supply operations for example, or warehouses. It really depends on what is available.
“It's not something people want to hear about, but its unfortunately what we have to consider in this current environment.”
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The Sunday Telegraph has been told the government has made inquiries about turning a large industrial warehouse in North Ryde into a morgue if need be.
The extra capacity would be on top of the new Forensic Medicine Unit at Lidcombe, which was opened last year and can accommodate 500 bodies.
A NSW Health spokesman would not confirm or deny the North Ryde plan but said the department was “working on a wide range of strategies to manage this unprecedented public health situation”.
“Which includes ensuring we have adequate facilities for our patients including the deceased,” he said.
“The care and dignity of all patients, including those deceased, remains our priority in all our planning for and responses to the COVID-19 pandemic.”
NSW Police officers have also been provided with COVID-19 risk assessment checklists that require them to notify the morgue if a deceased person had a fever, respiratory issues, been overseas or on a cruise in the last 14 days or worked in healthcare.
Australian Medical Association (AMA) NSW president Dr Keng-Seng Lim said frontline workers in these situations needed to make sure they had a high level of personal protection equipment.
“We would have to ensure that we were taking adequate precautions to prevent transmission of COVID-19 to those who were involved in handling the deceased bodies in order to protect the workers getting infected themselves,” he said.
“The risk would go down quite rapidly after death. My basis for saying that is COVID-19 seems to be transmitted through aerosols, like coughing, breathing and bodily fluids.”
The second biggest source of transmission was when those aerosols contaminated a surface, Dr Lim added.
In the United Kingdom, a temporary mortuary is under construction at Manor Park in East London and field hospitals have been set up in Central Park in New York to deal with mounting infections.
Australia’s death toll from coronavirus has been significantly lower than the UK and the US and a drop in the infection rate has authorities hoping they won’t have to resort to makeshift morgues.
According to a government source, the state emergency management plan, which was not created specifically for COVID-19, identified Hordern Pavilion at Moore Park and Homebush stadium as sites for field hospitals.
In western NSW, emergency services are looking at using hotels as makeshift hospitals if COVID-19 cases increase.
A source confirmed the hotels would be used to house patients that don’t need acute care but require isolation so the hospitals can accommodate critical patients.
Originally published as Makeshift morgues and field hospital sites in Sydney identified