The rising death toll in the UK has compelled British authorities to set up makeshift temporary morgues. Hospital morgues have already run out of space to accommodate more dead bodies and the quickest way to address it is through morgues that could just be taken down as soon as circumstances already warrant it.

New infections and increasing COVID-related deaths have caused a huge burden in the health system of the UK. In Surrey, which is located south of London, the mortuaries in hospitals have already reached their full capacity, which is at 600. Hence, local authorities opted to use temporary morgues to cater to additional bodies.

The temporary morgue is at the Headley Court facility. Reuters reported that a spokesman for the Surrey Resilience Forum revealed that the temporary morgue is a site in Leatherhead and a former site used by the Ministry of Defense.

The temporary mortuary can accommodate 845 bodies. It was initially set up in April, at the time when the initial outbreak of the coronavirus was seen in Britain.

According to the Surrey spokesman, when the mortuaries start to reach their full capacity, they would contact the temporary morgues and then the bodies will be collected. He also said that this also avoids the spectre of seeing patients who died being left at wards or as seen overseas, just left in corridors.

At present, the temporary morgue in Leatherhead holds about 170 bodies. In the last three weeks, they had 330 bodies and in a period of three months from April to June, they saw 700 bodies.

The temporary morgues are not only found in Leatherhead, there are other areas where these can be found as well. There are facilities in London and in Kent, as well as in southeast England.

The Worldometer reports that Britain has more than 83,000 deaths from coronavirus, which when ranked globally, is considered as the fifth-highest death toll in the world.

These temporary morgues are not only growing in number in Britain, but there are also those that were set up in other countries. In Canada, they can be found in Ontario. Global News reported that a hospital in southwestern Ontario resorted to storing bodies in a trailer due to a spike in deaths.

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Britain sets up temporary morgues. Photo: Pixabay

The CEO of Windsor Regional Hospital stated that they have been storing as many as five bodies in a trailer for the last two weeks. The hospital's morgue has already reached capacity. The temporary morgue was also built in April as space has become very limited.