Bodies Left on the Floor in Black Bags at the Mortuary for COVID-19 Victims

Two weeks ago, Anahit Harutyunyan visited the "mortuary" to identify her deceased uncle, who died of coronavirus, and she cannot forget what she saw—inhuman and unsanitary conditions, horror. As reported by panorama.am, bodies of those who died from coronavirus are not autopsied in Armenia.

"My brother's body was brought to a building called the morgue located within the National Center for Oncology. From what I understood, this is where they bring the bodies of those who died from COVID. I went there myself, and what I saw was horrifying. Bodies of people, rolled up in black bags, were lying on the floor," Anahit recounts to Panorama.am.

According to her, the morgue building is a dilapidated Soviet structure, and the treatment of the deceased and their relatives inside is simply disrespectful. "I understand that they couldn’t find space quickly, but couldn’t they hire two people to whiten a room, put down ten stretchers, and lay the deceased on them? The broken door of the half-ruined building opens, and you see black bags on the floor. At first, I didn’t understand what they were, then a person in a jumpsuit and mask came out with blood all over him. I wanted to understand where I had come; was it a slaughterhouse? I went inside, and saw that there were people in the black bags," she describes.

She is puzzled as to why, if the disease is so dangerous that autopsies are not performed, they only provided her with a mask and gloves upon entering the morgue.

"My sister asked if the deceased are shown behind glass, and I said, ‘What glass?’ The deceased were right on the floor at my feet. It wasn’t that the bodies were lined up in order. From the gestures of the accompanying person, I gathered that one of the bodies near my feet was my brother’s. I could see his mouth open, just as he had died. We understood that they don’t autopsy, but couldn’t they at least clean him up a bit? They know that a relative comes to identify the body; at least lift him off the floor and place him on a table. Psychologically, I’m in an awful state. I keep looking for things to justify the situation, but there is no justification. At that moment, blood was coming from my brother’s nose, he says, ‘Excuse me’ as he wipes his nose and hands me a pen with the same hand asking me to write, ‘I recognized my brother.’ It’s already shocking for a relative to go to a morgue, not knowing how death came, and we don’t even know; three days ago, he was a completely normal person who had an X-ray done, and they told us that everything was fine," she says.

Anahit blames the clinic doctor for her 64-year-old brother’s rapid illness complication and subsequent death. She claims the X-ray results indicated new emerging issues, yet the therapist only bothered to read the last line. "Three days later, when they went to the Erebuni Polyclinic, my brother had lost consciousness... He walked in and said, ‘I feel bad, I can’t breathe well.’ After days of back and forth, he collapsed, they called for an ambulance, and took him to Erebuni Hospital. They did a CT scan, and said there was 70% lung damage. The doctor blamed my brother’s children for the ‘messy state.’ They were surprised, ‘What do you mean messy? We had an X-ray three days ago; they said everything was normal.’ The doctor replied that the X-ray doesn’t always show everything. If the X-ray doesn’t show it, why do it? After his death, we went to get the papers, and it turned out that the X-ray did indicate the beginning of pneumonia. The therapist didn’t bother to read," said the sister of the deceased.

When the man was transferred to the hospital, he had not been tested, but the CT scan report indicated coronavirus. "Can you imagine, we waited two days after my brother's death for the system to inform us that the person had died; we ask for the test result so we can send him to the morgue. We call and ask what they are going to do with our relative’s body, and they say, ‘We are waiting for the result,’" Panorama.am’s interviewee explains, attributing all this to disorganized work.

Anahit recounts that after her brother's death, only two members of his seven-member family were tested. Their test results were positive. "Because of the chaotic work of the law enforcement, my aunt's family has been under constant stress. During isolation, they called three times, asking for my deceased brother to be transferred. It turns out they have neither a unified database nor is it updated. Different people call the same number five minutes apart, asking the same questions. They say, ‘Oh, you're in self-isolation, there are seven of you; you will need food, someone will call you to bring you food.’ And that call is what should have happened, but no one called or checked on us," Anahit recalls.

She admits she didn’t intend to speak on this topic until she saw Torosyan's order regarding changing the towels washed after burials, which angered her. "I didn’t even want to write or talk about this heavy topic, but seeing Arsen Torosyan's order about changing the towels after burials made me furious. It's absurd. There is nothing more to be done," she fumed.