Ecuador’s coronavirus horror: bodies ‘stacked seven high’ in bathrooms as morgues fill up
- Medical staff describe grisly scenes in city some refer to the ‘Latin American Wuhan’
- The pandemic has hit Ecuador with disproportionate force
Front line doctors in one of Latin America’s coronavirus epicentres are lifting the lid on the daily horrors they face in an Ecuadorean city whose health system has collapsed.
In one hospital in Guayaquil overwhelmed by Covid-19 patients, staff have had to pile up bodies in bathrooms because the morgues are full, health workers say.
In another, a medic said that doctors have been forced to wrap up and store corpses to be able to reuse the beds they died on.
Ecuador has recorded close to 23,000 coronavirus cases and nearly 600 deaths, with Guayaquil – which some refer to as “Latin America’s Wuhan” (mainland China’s epicentre) – by far its worst affected city. But the real toll is thought to be far higher.
A 35-year-old nurse at the first hospital who spoke on condition of anonymity said that the trauma of what he saw had affected him professionally and personally.
When the health emergency broke out in March, every nurse went from caring for 15 patients to 30 in the space of just 24 hours, he added.
