Coronavirus: No dignity in death as corpses pile high

Funeral homes in New York are in crisis as they struggle to meet surging demand amid the coronavirus pandemic.

Pat Marmo with the overflow of bodies in the basement of his funeral home in New York’s Brooklyn. Picture: AP

Pat Marmo walked among 20 or so dead bodies in the basement of his Brooklyn funeral home.

“Every person there, they’re not a body,” he said. “They’re a ­father, they’re a mother, they’re a grandmother. They’re not bodies. They’re people.”

Like many funeral homes in New York and around the globe, Marmo’s business is in crisis as he tries to meet surging demand amid the coronavirus pandemic that has killed more than 3000 people in New York City alone. His two ­mobile phones and the office line are ringing constantly. He’s begging families to insist hospitals hold their dead loved ones as long as possible.

His Daniel J. Schaefer funeral home in the Sunset Park neighbourhood of Brooklyn is equipped to handle 40 to 60 cases at a time, no problem. Last Thursday morning it was taking care of 185.

“This is a state of emergency,” he said. “We need help.”

Undertakers are being squeezed on one side by inundated hospitals trying to offload bodies, and on the other by the fact that cemeteries and crematoriums are booked solid for a week at least, sometimes two. “It’s surreal,” he said.

Marmo has about 20 embalmed bodies stored on gurneys and stacked on shelves in the basement and another dozen in his secondary chapel room, both chilled by airconditioners. He estimated that more than 60 per cent had died of the coronavirus. For most people, the virus causes mild or moderate symptoms, but for some, especially older adults and people with existing health problems, it can cause more severe illness and lead to death.

Hospitals in New York have been using refrigerated trucks to store the dead, and Marmo is trying to find his own. One company quoted him a price of $US6000 ($10,000) per month, and others are refusing outright because they don’t want their equipment used for bodies. Even if he gets a truck, he has nowhere obvious to put it. He’s wondering if the police ­station across the street might let him use its driveway.

Patrick Kearns, a fourth-generation funeral director in Queens, said the industry had never experienced anything like this. His family were prepared on 9/11 for their business to be overrun, but with so many bodies lost amid the rubble, the rush never came.

He’s seeing it now. The Kearns’ business in Rego Park is just minutes from Elmhurst Hospital, a hotspot in the city, which itself has emerged as the epicentre of the US outbreak. Through the first 15 days of March, the family’s four funeral homes held 15 services. In the second half of the month, they had 40.

AP