Cadavers accumulating in storage units as cost of living — and dying — rises
by Anthony Germain and Mike Moore
CBC
A smattering of nondescript storage containers sit nestled on a concrete slab in a back alley in St. John’s, taking up a couple of hundred square feet between the Janeway children’s hospital and Memorial University’s school of medicine.
A large, bright green dumpster is pushed up against the rail that cordons them off.
Anyone making use of the nearby busy parking lot — only a stone’s throw away — would likely pay no attention to the scene.
But the containers are actually freezer units, and inside are dozens of corpses in body bags. Twenty-eight was the most recent number they held, CBC News confirmed, but that number changes daily as bodies are added or removed during the night.
The morgue at the Health Sciences Centre in St. John’s uses the containers as overflow storage. Bodies are placed in the freezers until the next of kin can claim them.
But some are no longer claiming the bodies of their loved ones. Inflation and the cost of living are eating away at pocketbooks, leaving very little left over for the costs of cremation or other funeral services.