Do you bag your bodies naked?

[mama_d]

I had a death the other night, and found out that our new policy to save $ on linens is to bag the bodies naked. I flat out refused.

I know she was dead, so it shouldn't really matter whether she had a gown on or not, but it just seemed indecent to me. There was no way I was putting her into a plastic bag without being covered.

I was just curios if other facilities do this...and does it bother most people or am I just being weird?

[erflightrn]

The couple of hospitals that I have worked at we would place the body in a paper isolation gown or just put a clean gown on the body. You always have to clean them up usually anyway so that the family can see them before you send them away.

[Horseshoe, BSN, RN]

"The funeral directors happen to be friends of the family and I remember crying so hard about the thought of them having to put him in a body bag.. it was such a final and terrifying thing thinking of MY DADDY.. the greatest man I ever knew.. being put into a body bag! oh the pain! but now that you all are talking about this the thought that someone would have just shoved him in there naked..OMG its torture!"

I think it's just a tad unfair to assume that because certain places have policies that include sending a deceased patient to the ME or a funeral in only a body bag, that necessarily means that the nurses doing so are "just shoving them" into it. There are a lot of ways that people show respect-bathing, combing the hair, taking out tubes/lines if allowed, etc. As soon as the body arrives at the funeral home, many of the procedures which follow will be done with the patient naked. Are the funeral home employees being disrespectful?

[merrywhiterose]

I don't see a problem with sending them naked since the first thing they do at the funeral home is strip them.

[gopalan]

All of us have been taught to respect the dead. We don't even talk ill of the dead. When I come across a funeral procession, I stop dead in my tracks and move only it has passed by. If you are in a military uniform , you even have to salute the dead.

The idea is abominable.

Gopalan

[KJStarling]

Wow... I have done post mortem care in both the military and as a civilian. I was taught and so always have placed the deceased in the bag naked. What was emphasized to me was cleanliness, both of the patient and of any dressings... I often change dressings before transport. I have washed hair, too.

I'm meticulous and respectful, and I have always assumed the funerary people would dress the patient in something much nicer than a hospital gown...

But now I'm going to ask if there is a policy prohibiting giving the patient that last gown... I can think of some modest people I had the privilege of caring for who would have wanted to be clothed, even in that bag...

Post mortem care feels almost sacred to me, so be assured even if I sent my patients to the morgue or funeral home without a gown, they were treated with respect and care.

What an excellent, interesting, important thing it is we get to do!

[Chaya, ASN, RN]

Deceased is cleaned and a pad placed beneath buttocks. Ankles are secured together , wrists crossed and secured together in front. The body is wrapped in a disposable shroud, then placed in the body bag.

[lamazeteacher]

[quote=brillohead;4827000

As a student nurse, I've not yet been involved in post-mortem care. However, to me it seems most appropriate to do what the client / family would want done first. If there is no stated or implied* preference from them, my next guidance would be my own heart -- what do *I* feel is respectful and appropriate. I'm the one who is going to have the memory of this person's last moments in my facility, not some bean-counter in an off-site management office.

*--if you've cared for the person, you have a general idea of their comfort level even if nothing is explicitly stated... for example, I know my MIL would be horrified at the thought of being laid out naked on a bed for the whole world to see, but DH wouldn't give a crap one way or the other.

Before you do get involved in performing "end of life" procedures, read your facility's policies and procedures in that regard, and

then adhere to them!

Once you graduate, try to be appointed the QI committee to begin to disagree if you're still in lined to clothe bodies. Families have so much emotion that I doubt they'll ask what clothing was worn. Most people realize that funeral "homes" have that jurisdiction.

For heaven's sale don't take on the persona of one who knows better than all who have gone before....Ascribing someone's body as unworthy of respect unless clothed, is your belief. For all you know your patient may have been a nudist!

The time to respect a person's body is while it's owner is alive and able to implement preventive health practices and treat it with self respect. When life is gone from it, the way to show respect is by keeping speech to a minimum, not discussing how it happening or judging others, and keep voices low.

You really don't know what your own response will be the first time a patient in your care dies..,,

The first time it happened to me, the Head Nurse knew that, and sent a classmate of mine in to help. We had all cared for that hapless individual, who slowly suffocated in his pulmonary excretions. We as well as his family all wanted the end to come soon. My classmate did the unthinkable,laughing hysterically, and before I thought about it, I was laughing too. Luckily the first step of our procedure was "Shut the door to the room".

We felt that our reaction was terribly inappropriate, so we asked to discuss it in class. We

understood as a result of that process that such emotional pressure had built up for everyone, that relief of it brought on that reaction.

The patient had been a merry soul in better days, and may actually have appreciated our levity. He was one of those guys who smoked while his oxygen was provided inside his "tent", an ancient plastic enclosed space with the plastic tucked under the mattress. Who knew a bit of plastic could more efficiently deliver O2 directly onto the nostrils?(really dinasaurish) Of course he'd been warned many times about predicted explosion potential! Finally his doctor DC'd his O2 so only he would die without causing other fatalities..,,.

So times change, conditions improve, and you'll go through many experiences and reactions before your growth as a nurse has met thought through policies, hopefully without too much expressed outrage!

the O2, so only he would die, sooner rather than later. That happened in 1958, before "codes" or "no codes" existed.

Jed

[RetiredTooSoon]

When I was a student in the early 90s, we bagged our deceased patients naked. It was a case of "we've always done it this way"-probably a leftover from when patients were shrouded, not bagged. It always made me uncomfortable to do that; I didn't see the point of stripping them naked and couldn't the funeral home just send the gowns, etc, back to the hospital/nursing home? They're certainly there often enough and all our facilities used the same laundry service.

When my grandmother died in 1996, the funeral director told us that the hospital put her in the body bag still in her hospital gown. We didn't view her prior to cremation, so I can't confirm or deny what he said.

My dad died in 2009 and when we went to see him in the funeral home before cremation (we didn't have him embalmed or have a formal viewing), he was still in a hospital gown and covered in white blankets, one underneath him, one on top. The funeral director said that the hospice always sent their patients over in gowns and sheets and that he would return the gowns to them. Dad was probably cremated naked, but he went to the funeral home in a gown and sheet.

[islandroots]

I work in a clinic, so my patients do not die here. But if I was going to be sending a patient out in a body bag, I would put a clean gown on. WHy? Because it would give ME a feeling of comfort. I would feel like I did my best for that patient even until the end. That is what nurses do. We are not robots. We have feelings.:heartbeat

[lamazeteacher]

The last reply demonstrates the "I'll do as I think is right," never mind what my employer set forth in policy & procedure guidelines.

Nurses have an obligation to follow what is done where they work. If you feel morally inclined to dress the remnant of a person, check with your Supervisor - you don't want to jeopardize your job over this! Nurses need to know the existing regulations where they work, and if it seems intolerable to follow procedures there, find out what latitude you have to exert your own will. That's not robot-like, it's self preservation.

It's important to know that the "person" is gone, once death happens. Responsibility for what is done afterward belongs to the family. They have that burden as a way to do their grief work. I used to think that funerals and all the "trappings" and circumstances that society has, was superfluous until my own family died. Then I realized that those rituals were there to help me accept their passing.

[BrookeeLou_RN]

On a different note..my mother dies at home with hospice.. they came and cleaned her and prepared her but when funeral home came.. they were so good. They even asked permission to touch her and then she had o a beautiful gown and they simply asked if I preferred they keep it on or not. I said yes as even dead my mother would be appalled at being naked.. They asked permission to cover her face also. It was very dignified and professional to me....my dad died 6 months earlier and different hospice, different state, none of the respect, they did leave gown on.

I realize patient will never know and family might never know but I think I would ask family's opinion to be respectful to them.

Years ago working High Risk L&D we had many stillbirths , genetic terminations etc..Policy was to gown the baby, take photos from best angle possible, using blankets as needed, obtain lock of hair and foot prints, make into ma keepsake package for parents (we held them for 10 yrs if parents did not want them at birth) then I was escorted by security to morgue. It was a far distance and way under ground of large hospital. Policy was to keep infant in isolette for the trip.. I did this first time and the wheels of the isolette echoing in the deep basement were awful. So next time I carried the baby and sang a prayer/luluby very quietly. Guard thought I was nuts first time( they never would actually speak to nurses) but after the first time I found they would smile. Did anyone else ever know.. not till now. But I found it was my way to honor and respect this infant, and it hurt no one. No financial cost.. nothing else involved.

[steelcityrn, RN]

very nice post above:)