PanARMENIAN.Net – Guatemalan hospitals say they have had to bury dozens of Covid-19 sufferers who have never been identified, and a hospital is building files in the hope that once the pandemic ends, their loved ones will come out looking for them. Associated Press reports.
Employees of one of the country’s largest public hospitals have begun photographing patients who arrive alone and are too unhealthy to give their private details. Those who die unidentified are placed in frame bags with transparent windows on their faces in case family arrives regardless.
Protocols that demand the immediate burial of the dead in a pandemic only make the scenario more difficult, officials say.
It has reported that more than 47,000 have shown infections and more than 1,800 deaths nationwide.
No hospital appears to be using a national identity database containing the fingerprints of anyone with a national identity card. A spokeswoman for the registry said that searching for the national registry of others would only be conceivable by order of a judge, prosecutors or forensic officials.