Corpse-scandal UK hospital boss quits

BEDFORD, England -- The chief executive of a British hospital where corpses were dumped in an unrefrigerated chapel has resigned.

Ken Williams quit his job after newspapers printed pictures of the bodies in the carpeted room at Bedford Hospital, in central England, because the mortuary was full.

Peter Houghton, the UK's National Health Service (NHS) Executive regional director of the Eastern Region said: "The appalling pictures that appeared in newspapers in the past two days have brought to light totally unacceptable practice at Bedford NHS Trust."

He added: "This has caused considerable distress not only to friends and relatives of the deceased and the general public but also to staff within the hospital."

Earlier the family of Basil Riches, 77, of Bedford, told of their horror when they recognised him in photographs printed in Sunday newspapers.

"The whole family is devastated," said Mr Riches's son-in-law Garry Weaver, who lives in the United States and has travelled to England with his wife Julie for the funeral.

"I didn't know there were problems with the NHS in Britain until I came over here. I do now. No one from the hospital got in touch to say there was a problem with the mortuary. We haven't had an apology of any kind from the hospital."

Mr Weaver's wife said: "The hospital is going to have to answer an awful lot of questions for leaving people like that just on the floor, just discarded like a piece of trash, like a piece of litter."

The family said they were taking legal advice and their lawyers would be speaking to hospital bosses in the near future.

Houghton said the practice of using the chapel of rest as a makeshift mortuary ended on Friday.

He said: "It appears that this has happened on rare occasions in the past when the mortuary was full.

"Although Department of Health guidance regarding mortuary services was issued on May 23, 2000 and reinforced in November this was clearly not taken on board by the trusts's management.

"Specifically, the guidance insists that patients are treated with respect and dignity.

"That was certainly not the case at the hospital last week.

"On this occasion, despite having a temporary mortuary available, bodies were stored on the floor in totally inappropriate conditions," he added.

"The reason the additional temporary facility was not being used was because of problems with the doors, not because there were no places available.

"This problem had caused a porter to injure himself," Houghton said.

The Commission for Health Improvement, an independent inspectorate for the NHS, would visit the hospital on January 29 and had been asked to look at the matter in addition to its wider review of the hospital.

UK NHS
Bedford Hospital

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