2024-07-26 17:10:41
The heat has blown up the problem, which has been around for years, but the state hasn’t offered a workable solution
Overwhelmed with twice as many corpses is the largest morgue in the country – the one at Aleksandrovsk Hospital. It stores 150 bodies at a capacity of only 75. Therefore, the reception of corpses for storage and autopsies stops there. Prosecutor General Borislav Sarafov publicly warned about the serious problem in a letter to Prime Minister Dimitar Glavchev and to the Minister of Health Dr. Galya Kondeva.
Prosecutor No. 1 is pushing for an urgent decision because the issue could block many serious crime investigations. Exactly one year ago – on July 23, 2023, “24 Chasa” also warned about full morgues throughout the country. Then there were 130 bodies in Aleksandrovsk Hospital. And this February, even 170. But after a meeting with the then chief prosecutor Ivan Geshev, 40 corpses were taken out for storage in cold chambers of the municipal enterprise “Cemetery Parks”. “24 Chasa” then announced that
looking for land for a new morgue in Sofia,
but a working solution was not reached, and on July 22, 2024, the director of the largest hospital – “Aleksandrovska”, Prof. Dr. Atanas Yonkov, notified the prosecutor’s office to stop accepting corpses and stop forensic medical examinations, since capacity is exhausted.
The situation in the heat has critically exacerbated this long-standing problem, as there is a danger of an epidemic explosion.
“This will not only create extreme difficulties in the work on pre-trial proceedings in the territory of Sofia-city and Sofia-region, but it may even block it if it comes to an objective impossibility to order the performance of forensic medical examinations in cases of causing death and physical injuries”, wrote Borislav Sarafov to the Minister of Health.
And he adds that he approaches the critical situation with understanding, but is disturbed.
“The organization and operation of medical institutions should not
hampers investigations
in criminal cases for crimes of a general nature, even more so for serious intentional crimes (murders – b.a.) and the related forensic medical examinations”, emphasizes the chief prosecutor.
He expects other medical facilities in Sofia to help in this situation, since the problem is not in Alexandrovska hospital.
Acquaintances explained that there are other morgues in Sofia. One of them is in the VMA, in whose
morgue has room for only 12 bodies
The only two vacancies are reserved for those who died in the hospital itself.
Another problem is that according to our law, bodies are kept until a burial permit is issued.
It is given by the supervising prosecutor after all investigative actions have been exhausted. It is about the expertise in trauma, alcohol and others. There are also cases of bodies that have not been identified. And even those who died with a burial permit are sitting in morgues in the country. It happens that relatives say that they do not have the financial means. Others that they are offended by their deceased loved one and do not want to have anything to do with him.
The Ministry of Health is aware of the long-standing problem, they confirmed for “24 Hours”.
“With a letter dated July 15, the Minister of Health convened
emergency meeting on the subject, which took place on 18 July
It was attended by the management of the hospital, representatives of the Ministry of Health, the Ministry of the Interior, the Sofia City Prosecutor’s Office, the Capital Municipality and the Capital Regional Health Inspectorate,” explained the department. At the meeting, the need to transfer at least 50 corpses to the cold chambers of “Cemetery Parks” was discussed, where they would be stored until permission to bury them was obtained.
According to the Ministry of Health, 17 bodies have been released so far, and 10 more are being released today
“In the meantime, until the optimization of the capacity in the Forensic Medicine Clinic at the Aleksandrovka UMBAL, an organization has been created to receive corpses in the other medical facilities in the territory of the capital,” explained the department.
And in Burgas, the morgue is overcrowded, they still use the freezer for ice cream
“And we are on the verge of stopping accepting corpses. The ward is overcrowded, there are drowned people, refugees who stay for months and sometimes years. But unlike the capital, where there are several hospitals performing autopsies and examinations, if we stop, it becomes scary.”
This is how the head of Forensic Medicine in Burgas, Dr. Galya Mileva, commented on the news that Alexandrovska Hospital is stopping autopsies, as it can no longer accept corpses.
“The storage of the bodies is a big problem. We have an 18-place freezer that is overflowing and a cold room. It has a capacity for 12 bodies, and at the moment there are 28. We are forced to use even an ice cream freezer, in which we can fit up to 4 corpses”, explains Dr. Mileva.
The “oldest” corpse in the morgue is that of a drowned Russian man from 2016.
“Summer is a nightmare, we have two or three drownings a day, this year they are mostly Ukrainians and Czechs. Refugees are also separate. I have raised the alarm more than once about the nightmare situation. This problem should be solved by the state, but it is not there”, said Dr. Mileva angrily. She is on the verge of following her colleagues from Aleksandrovsk despite the consequences for the prosecutor’s office that would arise from refusing to perform autopsies and examinations.
“We stopped working once many years ago. Then the local authority managed to solve the problem in 24 hours”, says Dr. Mileva. And he warns – In the end, we will really put two or three corpses in the garden in front of the prosecutor’s office, so that they can get better.”