Colombian businessman makes bed-coffin combo to serve coronavirus dead
Disturbing images of bodies of dozens of coronavirus victims awaiting burial on the streets of Ecuador's largest city Guayaquil has motivated a businessman in neighboring Colombia to design something he hopes would prevent a similar scenario in other countries: hospital beds that can be converted to coffins.
Cardboard bed-coffins
Worried his country's health system might at some point be over-taxed, Rodolfo Gomez, whose company ABC Displays usually produces marketing material, designed the cardboard bed-coffins.
"We saw what was happening in Ecuador, that people were taking dead family members out onto the streets...what's happening also is that funeral services are collapsing with the pandemic," said Gomez, 44. "So we started to develop a bed that could be converted into a coffin."
(Photograph:Reuters)
Convertable beds
Gomez hopes their low cost will mean local and provincial governments can outfit rural or under-funded hospitals cheaply. Converting them to coffins if a patient dies will also reduce possible contamination, he said.
"Once the bodies are prepared it is converted to a coffin and covered," said Gomez at his Bogota factory, which can produce up to 3,000 beds per month. "The staff who are nearby are not exposed to biological risk."
(Photograph:Reuters)
Beds to be donated to the hospitals
The first bed-coffins will be donated to the hospital in Leticia, an Amazonian Colombian city which has a high number of cases and limited hospital capacity.
Gomez says he has already spoken to potential buyers in Peru, Chile, Brazil, Mexico and the United States.
(Photograph:Reuters)