A Mix Up At The Morgue Play Video
Posted: Oct 18, 2009 6:44 PM
Updated: Oct 19, 2009 6:35 AM
A mix up at the morgue leaves the wrong person cremated. The women died at Lafayette General Medical Center but their bodies went to the wrong funeral homes. "I can't explain the feeling," said Chakakhan Joseph, Ruby Joseph's daughter, "It's overwhelming," she said as she started to cry.
Her mother, 58-year old Ruby Joseph died of a heart attack on October 7th. Leaving behind her three children; Chakakhan, Kenneth and Guy. They are now not only mourning her death, but also a mix up that left her cremated. "I walked in Raphael's funeral home and saw this lady, in my moms casket, in her dress, and it was not my mom," said Chaka. The woman she saw was 82-year old Rose Alex, who was supposed to be at Kinchen funeral home in Lafayette.
At that moment Raphael's funeral director called LGMC and told them they gave him the wrong body. Joseph's funeral was supposed to take place on Saturday, but since the family found out on Friday that her body was cremated, they still had a funeral service except the pallbearers were holding an empty casket.
"They should have been paying attention to what they were doing, they should have been following procedures and stop trying to take all kinds of short cuts," said Guy Joseph.
"How could you burn a body and not know what you were burning. Why would you not look at the tag before you burned the body," said Chaka. The oldest son Kenneth said, "It's a horrible thing, it's horrible for the Joseph family and it could be horrible for any other family."
The Joseph family says they are now seeking legal action
Kinchen funeral home refused to comment on the issue. Lafayette general medical center's CEO released a statement saying he was sorry for the grief this has caused both families. He went on to say, "Lafayette general's standard procedure is to allow funeral homes to retrieve deceased patients from our morgue. All patients are identified with two separate id's and in this case, the bodies were properly identified but the wrong patients were retrieved."
Callecod says they are reviewing their processes to ensure this never happens again.
Sarah Rosario
srosario@katctv.com
concerned former patient at Oct 19th 2009 7:25 AM
The quality of care at Lafayette General Hospital is just unexceptable...Have any of you been unfortunate enough to have to spend time there trying to recover..if so you will have to agree..Things need to change there soon or they need to shut their doors for good...The nurses and nurse's aides are rude and uncaring..patients needs are ignored, wrong medicines are dispensed (if they decide to dispense them at all..), accidents are happening in the surgery rooms..etc...And now the bodies of loved ones were mixed up...Wake up people..Quit giving them our money until they give us what we pay so much for..QUALITY CARE AND SERVICE..........
Confused at Oct 19th 2009 10:53 AM
Lafayette General states that they bodies were appropriately identified?!? I find it hard to believe that two seperate funeral homes went to retrieve a body and ended up taking one with the wrong identification without noting the discrepancy.
realist at Oct 19th 2009 11:40 AM
Lafayette General does have a protocal in place where the staff confirms the bodies and tells the funeral homes which one to take. To place blame on either funeral home is wrong. Neither funeral home knew the bodies were wrong. Raphael showed the body and had no clue it was wrong until they went to style the hair. Had this been two cremations, neither of the two families would have known b/c LGMC performed their protocal and gave the wrong bodies. I feel sorry for both funeral homes b/c their reputation is at stake for a mistake the hospital made.
realist at Oct 19th 2009 11:42 AM
Lafayette General does have a protocal in place where the staff confirms the bodies and tells the funeral homes which one to take. To place blame on either funeral home is wrong. Neither funeral home knew the bodies were wrong. Raphael showed the body and had no clue it was wrong until they went to style the hair. Had this been two cremations, neither of the two families would have known b/c LGMC performed their protocal and gave the wrong bodies. I feel sorry for both funeral homes b/c their reputation is at stake for a mistake the hospital made.
CONCERNED SIBLING OF PAST PATIENT at Oct 19th 2009 2:55 PM
My mother had a stay in Lafyette General with a stomach virus and instead of having her on a bland diet, they were feeding her rice and gravy every day. Even with the bouts of diearia and me begging the doctor to change her diet, they never did , and we could get any help to clean her up. being her son she would not allow me to try to clean her ., so i found one orderly which i could tip her to help , but the nurses could care less. After a one and a half week stay she was no better and they were releasing her on a monday. I fought ths but the very rude nurses said that there was nothing they could or would do. I called her Doctor and finally recieved a phone call from them , and explained she was absolutely no better and weaker than when she came in. They made an appointment for that wednesday and we had to take her home. On wednesday we made the appt and with still all the same problems he said she was healthy as a horse. The very next morning at 7:00am the home health nurse siad her blood pressure was 100 over 40 and we rushed her back to this hell house they call Laf General and i am screaming in the emergency as my mom lay there holding my hand telling me baby i'm not going to make it. Finally after some serious yelling this so called doctor comes in with hands in pocket asking her what is wrong and where does it hurt , as she lay there and could not breath. Finally after afew more seconds she codes on us and then he wants to get 20 people in this emergency room as they would call it. I had to scream to him to try to save her within a few second of them trying to revie her. She was a beautiful persn willing to help anyone and would have helped this with anything that he would have needed. The moral to long story don't be in an age that looks like you have lived to be 82 you don't really need to be in this hospital for someone to to look at this persn and realize this beautiful person needs saving the second they are brought in the emergency room or the first time she was brought in for care of a stomach virus.