Tom Powell
AN INVESTIGATION is underway into a pile of shriveled and dissected corpses in a storeroom at Madrid’s Complutense University, after it was revealed in a graphic video.
Around 250 cadavers donated to the medical science department were being stored in appalling conditions, shown in footage published by Spanish daily newspaper El Mundo.
It reported that some of the bodies had been there for up to seven years, describing the shambolic storeroom as a ‘scene from a horror film’.
The bodies and parts of bodies were reportedly stored without any method of identification.
The footage reveals a pair of black feet on the lid of a rubbish bin. Some photographs showed random body parts strewn across the storeroom floor.
University authorities have announced they are arranging a funeral parlour to dispose of the bodies immediately, and an internal investigation has been launched.
The University confirmed that it receives around 50 donated corpses a year, to be used for teaching trainee doctors.
It blamed the scene on a lack of staff and claimed El Mundo published a ‘distorted view of reality’.
“The member of staff charged with operating the incinerating took early retirement in December and we haven’t been able to fill the position because of a dispute with the union,” said Ramon Merida, director of the anatomy department.
Madrid Complutense University released this statement: “The cadaver remains were undergoing a drying process necessary prior to incineration.
“They cannot be disposed of while they contain the chemical products used in order to study them.”
Just excuses for incompetance
The first head to roll (and stored till it’s dry) should be the person who is making these pathetic excuses.
“It’s the unions fault”. “They need to be dried first”. “We are short of staff”. In spite of all these hurdles, it now seems it’s possible to dispose of these poor souls remains,pronto.
It is not only incompetEnce.
“We are short of staff”, “a dispute with the union”: they are trying to make everybody pay attention to the “recortes”. It’s a veiled way to criticize either the government, the PSOE, or the union. In my opinion, El Mundo should not go so far in order to harm a political party.
I have read the article in Spanish. It is something you could find in a tabloid, only El Mundo is not a tabloid, but it will become a tabloid if it continues publishing news in order to attack parties or unions in a veiled way.
I agree that some heads should roll, but maybe some of them should be from El Mundo. Shame on them as well, because the way the story is written in Spanish is showing me their true intention.