London: Mortuary Fridges Too Small For Big-Big Bodies

NHS hospitals are buying specialist equipment to keep bodies cool because they are too large to fit into mortuary fridges, it was reported today.

Hospitals are also having to widen corridors and buy reinforced beds and lifting equipment to cope with increasing numbers of obese patients, according to The Daily Telegraph.

Hospitals have spent at least £5.5 million over the past three years to allow them to treat larger patients, the newspaper said.

Among examples it gave were Yeovil District Hospital NHS Trust spending £15,000 on a bariatric body cooling system for bodies which will not fit in standard-size mortuary fridges, and Doncaster and Bassetlaw NHS Trust spending £80,000 widening corridors to accommodate obese patients.

The data was obtained under a freedom of information request, the newspaper said, pointing out that a quarter of adults in the UK are estimated to be obese and the number is expected to grow to more than half in the next 30 years.
www.telegraph.co.uk/health/healthnews/10901487/hospitals-buy-special-fridges-to-store-overweight-bodies-as-obesity-crisis-escalates.html 

Tam Fry, a board member of the National Obesity Forum, told the newspaper: "If NHS spending on overweight patients is as low as £10 million a year by 2050, we might have got away lightly.

"It has got to such a point that so much now has to be widened and strengthened."