Dilemma in Handling Corpse with COVID-19 Protocol at Hospital in Padang, West Sumatera (Indonesia)

Abstract Background: The high risk of transmitting Covid-19 from the corpse causes the importance of handling protocols under coronavirus characteristics. Indonesian Forensic Doctor Association (PDFI) recently published a guideline to deal with this situation. Hospitals in Indonesia adapted these instructions as the standard. This process faces some struggle situations since this new guidance different from the usual protocols that are already well known by people in handling the deceased. This research evaluates the implementation of these protocols by medical practitioners in West Sumatera. This descriptive research was conducted in two COVID-19 refferal Hospital in Padang. There are 13 mortuary staffs as respondents from both hospitals who directly deal with the corpses. There were 129 bodies served under Covid-19, the guideline during this period. Results: The mortuary staff comes to the isolation room in about 30 minutes after being called to handling the corpse. Corpses were prepared and packed in this room. The dead bodies were transferred to the mortuary room before being driven to the funeral location by ambulance. The corpse, on average, waited less than 3 hours in the mortuary room. Mortuary staff showed a full sincerity to avoid transmitting Covid-19 as all of them used the recommended Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) while handling the infected corpses. The staff only started their work after the standard tools are available. Mortuary staff reported that 40% of relatives of the deceased gave a negative response to the Covid-19 guidelines. Conclusion: The implementation of the procedure to follow the instruction from PDFI in handling infected bodies has some problems. The process could be delayed if the protective equipment runs out, so the staff should wait for the availability PPE. The number of ambulances also gained the time process because some bodies remained so long for the available transport. Although the mortuary staff showed serious concern on the guidelines, they feel unsupported since some families of deceased show negative respect to the protocols. This research recommended that massive education about the Covid-19 protocol in preparing and packing the infected bodies is essential not only for medical practitioners but also for citizens.