Even after death, restrictions apply to COVID-19 victims

Medical authorities on Thursday explained that the handling of deceased COVID-19 patients, including closed caskets at funerals, is in line with strict infection and control prevention to protect loved ones and death care workers.

Grieving loved ones have been publicly lamenting their inability to be involved in the handling of the bodies of family and friends or even view them during their final sendoff for closure.

At Thursday’s COVID-19 update held at Ilaro Court, Acting Chief Medical Officer Dr Anton Best acknowledged it’s a difficult but unavoidable process that is intended to protect all concerned.

“With COVID you are still infectious when you are dead, we want to protect the death care workers,” Dr Best told journalists. “So the standard procedures of infection prevention and control, wearing PPE [Personal Protective Equipment] apply. What also applies to the management of a dead body is that autopsies are not done.

“If the person has died from COVID, the reason why an autopsy is not done is because you may do something call aerosol generation where you get the COVID-19 particles or virus particles in the air and then that puts the death care worker at risk.”

Dr Adanna Grandison, Consultant Manager of Home Quarantine, who also works with the Coroner’s office, told journalists that PCR tests are conducted on those suspected of having died from the virus which has so far claimed 88 lives here.

Dr Grandison said: “We do swab those persons whether it is on site in very few cases or when that body is transported to the funeral home and those cases are actually expedited through the public health lab so we are fully aware of the additional measures that need to be taken.

“From there that data is sent back to the coroner’s office where the coroner can make an informed decision certainly to protect the death care workers at the funeral home but also the pathologist.”

She also stressed that autopsies are not performed here on those who were COVID positive in order to protect the pathologist.

“So really swabbing and detection of COVID positivity status is all about safety,” she said.

Dr Grandison, who is also a vice president of the Barbados Association of Medical Practitioners stressed that public health measures must be observed even to the point of the burial.

She said: “An open casket is not allowed because then you have persons there in the space with a body who can potentially become infected. So essentially we try to expedite those cases to get them buried as quickly and as safely as possible.

“But we do understand that family members need closure and we do try to accommodate as much as possible but certainly not an open casket because we cannot expose our death care workers and we do not want to expose family members.” (SD)