Liberals say the body storage problem at a St. John's hospital is news to them. The NDP disagrees
NDP Leader Jim Dinn says funeral assistance rates and overflowing morgue has been brought up in past
Newfoundland and Labrador's health minister and children and seniors minister say they learned only Wednesday morning that freezer units used to store dead bodies outside a St. John's hospital, after a CBC News report outlined the morgue's overflow problem.
But provincial NDP Leader Jim Dinn is calling foul, insisting government officials knew about a worsening issue as early as 2021.
"It's shocking, it's appalling," Dinn told reporters after question period at the House of Assembly on Wednesday afternoon.
The cause of the body overflow situation is the rise in the cost of living, leaving less money in the wallets of people who are in charge of a loved one's funeral arrangements. Unclaimed bodies are stored, indefinitely, in freezer units in an alleyway on hospital property.
Dinn said he wrote Children and Seniors Minister Paul Pike in February and told him funeral home owners have been raising flags since 2021 about insufficient burial rates provided by the government for those on income support.
Right now, next of kin may get up to $2,338 in government assistance to help with cremation or burial costs of their loved ones. That figure hasn't changed in nearly 20 years.
There's also a public trustee process through the Department of Justice. The department appoints public trustees to help people who are not on income support. That person assesses the household income.
"It's a cost of living issue that government has failed to address," Dinn said.
Both Health Minister Tom Osborne and Newfoundland and Labrador Health Services say a "permanent storage unit at the Health Sciences Centre to preserve these remains" is being built in "the coming months."
Osborne couldn't say what it would look like or where it will go. He also couldn't say why the freezer units are in an alleyway next to a dumpster.
"Based on the number of remains that are currently held, they're looking at a permanent solution. Because what is in place, I think the health authority themselves recognize that what is in place is not a long-term solution," he said.
Dinn wondered why a new facility for permanent storage is even an option.
"Here's an idea. Pay the rates, help people who are struggling, help them have a dignified funeral and memorial service," he said.
"If you want a permanent solution then a dignified burial, whether that's in a grave or on a column, whatever. But to hear the minister talk about this, either he doesn't understand the situation, he's being deliberately obtuse or he's just plain insensitive."
Dinn also said his party received documents from an access-to-information request that indicate at least one government department knew about the worsening situation at the morgue in October.
PC Leader Tony Wakeham called the situation deplorable and said he was shocked to learn about it.
"It's a story that I don't think anybody in Newfoundland and Labrador would want to hear, especially about families that can't afford to bury their loved ones, and the only solution the government has come up with is to store them in a container," he said.
"It's a disrespect for families and it's a disrespect for the people, obviously, [who] have passed away."
But Pike said the key is simple: people struggling to afford funeral services have to get in touch with his department.
"Once that happens, the process has started. In a lot of cases it takes time for that to happen," he said. "We're reviewing our practices around it as well."
As for raising the assistance rates, he said his department has a working group looking at a three-year plan and there could be an update as early as April.
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