How does your facility transport patients into the morgue cooler?

[littlern820126]

This week myself and another nurse had to transfer a patient to the morgue cooler. My concern is this patient was bigger than both nurses, in height and weight. It was really difficult to transfer safetly from the gurney to cooler. Since then my back has been hurting. Yes, this has been reported to proper administration. My Questions are: How does your facility deal with this , do you have a lift to assist? Is it nursing's responsibilty to transfer?

[ayla2004, ASN, RN]

our porters take the deceased to the morgue all we assit is with the "pat slide"(brand name pt moving board) to the trolley.

i have no idea how the body is transfered to the morgue coolers but we have morgue staff.

[nurse2be2010]

At my facility, we put the deceased on an "angel cart" and the angel cart along with our hospitals own transporters, goes to the morgue and straight into the cooler.

However, a few years back when I worked somewhere else, we had a 400 pound patient die and to push the angel cart into the cooler was a challenge. Our cooler for some odd reason was up a ramp. Whomever was trying to push him up the ramp was not successful and the cart actually tipped over. What a tragedy!!! They had to "STAT PAGE" all male staff to assist in lifting this guy back up.

Maybe they should just put coolers in all of the patient's rooms

[Stcroix, ASN, PhD, RN]

I am a student and volunteer on the transportation crew. We move bodies to the morgue with 3 people (unless the body is very large) and use a backboard to do the sliding, much like we do for live patients. I was shown by a woman with 15 years experience, she "works smart" and has great ability.

[ERnewbieRN, BSN, RN]

Two security officers take patients to the morgue with a covered, designated gurney at my facility. I work ER.