THE MORGUE: A SUGGESTION.

Auckland Star, Volume XLII, Issue 176, 26 July 1911, Page 6

THE MORGUE: A SUGGESTION.

(To the Editor.) Sir, —Having recently had occasion to attend an inquest as a juror at the hospital morgue, I beg to draw the attention of the public to a matter which, it will be generally conceded, would be all the better for a little rectification, I refer to the practice of laying dead bodies of both sexes and any nationality side by side in one chamber. To a bereaved father, mother, brother, sister, or friend, as the case may be, to have to view their dead side by side with three or four other bodies, is hardly giving the public that privacy which such occasions demand. The last time I attended 'there were four bodies— and it must have been very hurtful to the feelings of those bereaved, and most certainly served to rob the place of the sanctity usually expected in these trying ordeals, to see so many in the same chamber simultaneously. As the matter of a new morgue is now well forward, I trust that separate compartments for each sex will be allocated instead of the present—shall I say?—uncouth method of procedure.—l am, etc., ERNEST CROSS.