AUGUSTA, Ga. – As the coronavirus continues to claim the lives of people across the United States, the people in charge at Augusta University Medical Center say they aren’t taking any chances.
Richmond County Coroner Mark Bowen and local hospitals are constantly thinking of new ways to keep things running smoothly as we near the peak of the COVID-19 pandemic.
“One of the principles in disaster management and certainly in a pandemic is that you have to plan ahead. You want to be proactive you don’t want to have to make critical decisions in the heat of the moment or once the need arises,” says Vice President of AUMC Dr. Philip Coule.
Dr. Phillip Coule explains why a mobile morgue can be an asset.
“Some of the problems that other cities have had is that the funeral homes they didn’t want to take patients that had COVID-19 was because they didn’t know what the risk are or what they have to do different. Because of that that creates a problem with what normally happens.”
Coule tells me it’s important to understand how the virus takes over different places -paying close attention to the outcome and –then learning from it.
“In our case we’ve been very fortunate that our funeral homes and our coroner Mark Bowen have been very proactive in reaching out to those funeral homes to make sure they know what they have to do different to take care of patience that might be deceased from covid-19.
Dr. Coule says he does not want to instill fear with the morgues but wants everyone to understand one thing.
“It’s planning for the worst case scenario out of an abundance of caution. Our goal with all of this planning and all of the activity is to take care of the community. and to make sure that we do that we’re always planning for the worse.”
