It was a Wednesday morning when I received a phone call from my partner. I thought it would be a cheerful “happy nine months baby” as it was our nine month anniversary, but instead it was “remember that kid Craig from last year? He died last night.” I was so surprised, it was like a nightmare.  You never want to hear those words until you are far  in old age.  His funeral was just a couple days later. He was buried on my graduation day which was Saturday. They sure buried him fast. When I saw him at his funeral, I couldn't even tell that he was in a car accident. The back of his neck was really bad though according to the mortician. He died instantly and his family was ready to bury him instantly.  Normally funerals are in a week of death, unless you live in Detroit where the time between death and a wake could take months.

     Detroit has been in an economic downfall since the 1980's. Since then, the city has been making budget cuts and eliminating over a thousand jobs to help the budget deficit.  These cuts are being made all over the city.  “Detroit Mayor Dave Bing says Council’s budget cuts will force his administration to scale back bus service, close the People Mover, and eliminate some recreation programs like Hart Plaza’s summer festivals.” (2) Although true that Detroit is in the middle of a crisis, is it acceptable to be cutting all of these things?  Let’s look at a cut made to the Smart Bus company no more than a couple months ago.  This cut eliminated cops and security guards from riding the public busses to keep them safe.  Just a short time after this cut was made, a bus driver was attacked.  If the council hadn't made this decision, then the attack  wouldn’t have never happened.
  
     The Detroit Electronic Music Festival brings in 99,282 (3) people to Hart Plaza. The amount of money that this festival brings in is enormous, and to think for one second that we will just let it go is ridiculous. To give up these festivals is not only breaking tradition but also preventing the city from bringing in as much revenue as possible.  
     Detroit has been the motor city for a long time and it hurts to say that it has been ruined by pollution, mostly from our cars.  If the buses aren’t safe and gas is only becoming more expensive by the hour, how else will people get around?  Many people use the people mover as an alternative way of transportation and also a great way to see the city from a different point of view.  But wait, the security guards on the people movers were cut so not only is it not safe anymore, but soon it will be cut completely.  These cuts are really ruining the city of Detroit.

    One of the major cuts that was made was to the city morgue. “The morgue budget has been cut to $6.2 million from $8.1 million in 2007, and its staff reduced to 31 from 52," said Dennis Niemiec, a spokesman for the state’s largest county. (1) The lucky workers that kept their job at the morgue are being overloaded with bodies and paper work.  It’s not only unfair to the people working but also to the families that are waiting for the information on how their loved one had died.  No one deserves to wait to have their loved finally be able to rest in peace. That is why the morgue budget cut is a problem that needs to be fixed. 

        It is taking these few workers left at the morgue exceptionally long to do their job because they are so short staffed, which, in turn, is making families wait and exceptionally long time to bury their loved ones.  “The remains of the following people are at the Wayne County morgue, their next of kin unknown.   If you have information, call (313) 833-2568.” (4) This quote is then followed by a list of  twenty people still in the morgue all the way back from 2005.  No one has come to claim them these bodies.  Even when the families have come, they can't get them out because they don’t have enough money.  "It's devastating to a family not to be able to take care of their own," said Darrell Vickers, who along with his wife went down to the morgue to identify his aunt's body. "But there's really no way to come up with that kind of cash in today's society. There's just no way." (5) It is just sad that he doesn't have money to get his aunt out of the morgue because the rates are outrageous. Citizens are in a hard economic time, not just the city itself. 

   This budget cut is crossing the line, literally. When  someone dies in the Detroit city limits, it does not matter where you or your family reside. They will be put in the Detroit morgue regardless.  "Dieing in Wayne County is the worst thing you can do for yourself" said Faye Mickens. (6) Faye Mickens is not quite shy on expressing her feelings. She has every right to be angry. Her daughter, Sharon, lived in West Bloomfield and was at the Henry Ford Hospital and was rushed to the Detroit Henry Ford for internal bleeding. Unfortunately, Sharon had died on the way past Detroit city limits. Her family is curious to what she died of, since she was never seriously sick before. The time it took to receive an answer was a grueling six months after she died. The family faxed the office every day for weeks to receive the cause of death. After several weeks of faxing they received an answer, but still to this day have no death certificate. They weren’t the only ones to wait for a death certificate.  Mark Robinson’s wife died and he waited six months for the death certificate. Because of this wait he lost his car and almost lost his house. No death certificate, no life insurance check. The problem with the morgue is the lack of staff to do the paper work. With all the bodies piling up, a lot of paper work has to be done and when the morgue is short staffed it is hard to complete this  task.

   I recently interviewed a doctor named Mark Schneider. Dr. Schneider is a chiropractor from Sterling Heights and previously worked in a morgue. During the interview I asked basic questions such as “How long does an autopsy take?” His response was simply “two to three hours but sometimes testing takes longer”.  I also asked “On average what was the staff to death ratio?" His reply was “The staff doesn’t change only the amount of bodies that come in.”  I asked " Are there more than three workers on staff usually". He said "Yes, administration, medical examiner, and his/ her technical staff."   

   Understanding how morgues work it was surprising to understand that the Detroit morgue only had one investigator working that day that went to pick up Michael Gonzales. Michael died in his hotel room on a summer day.    Roasting in the room, police called for an investigator and they simply told police that one was not available. Not only was it a health hazard  that his body was lying decomposing in a hot room, but his family was appalled that his body was left there like a piece of garbage.  Is that all we are to this city when we die? With the spike of murders in the city the morgue gets about 13, 00 bodies a year. A staff of one medical examiner, 10 investigators, and 4 pathologists is all they have at the Wayne County Morgue. It also doesn’t help that the medical examiner of Wayne Country is also the medical examiner for Monroe County. Was the amount of bodies at the Detroit Morgue not enough?  For the amount of bodies they receive in the morgue they should have a staff of a lot more people.
   
All this is very sickening but the worst part is what  human services are doing about this problem. Edith Killins is the co director of  health and human services of Wayne County and her story is chilling. It was reported that in a meeting she told employees to tell families that the wait for death certificates will be 6-8 weeks.  She denies this statement and says that she was only telling them how long it should take.”  Lying to families who have just lost their loved ones is sick and unethical.  Obviously, Killins knows that something is wrong.  What is she doing about this matter? Nothing. Instead of lying to families, she should be finding ways to solve this problem.

We have all been in a situation of being late or rushing, sometimes even in work. We all make mistakes. But there is a difference between a mistake and a careless mistake. There are certain jobs that require focus and when these jobs are rushed, careless mistakes are made. Bodies and bodies piling up, frantic workers trying to make up for lack of staff, all of the sudden a careless mistake is made and then your loved one that died of an inner problem has to have a closed casket from an autopsy gone wrong. A metro Detroit embalmer had reported that a rib cage was lost in an autopsy.  Sloppy work resulting from being  understaffed is just unacceptable.

  When my grandfather died it was really hard for my mother because they were so close. My mother and I are very close and I pray that I do not have something tragic happen to me when I am doing precarious things in the theater. If I do, how long will it take for my mother to bury me? I would not want my family to suffer. Nobody should suffer this immense pain of not being able to bury their loved one.  Waiting is such a terrible feeling but having to wait to bury our daughters, wives, husbands, siblings, and parents is ridiculous.  We are also waiting for our government to do something about this.

A solution was proposed that the morgue takes University of Michigan's graduates students and have them work as interns. The propsal has been in effect since October 2011 and is doing quite well.  With the University of Michigan at the side of Wayne County's Medical examiner we not only get the help but the technonlogy to process results faster."Without the university agreement, Wayne County would have to spend more than $800,000 to improve lab equipment, Schmidt said. Instead, the university would take over blood, tissue and toxicology tests."(7) That saves so much money. The morgue hasn't been accredited since 1979 which doesn't effect being open but it does effect its voice in the court system. Being paired up with the University of Michigan the morgue will be on the track to getting back their accreditation. 

Being with the University of Michigan is an amazing step but working with Wayne State as well would only make things better. The Wayne State University Morgue is located on Woodward just past the Maccabees building. This is closer to Wayne counties morgue than the University of Michigan's. So what's the difference?  There is none. Wayne State and Michigan are both outstanding research schools. This means they get money from the government and money from donors.  It would cost less money to bring a body to Wayne State then it would to bring them to the University of Michigan.  Michigan still has good technology and will still be a big advantage but more people helping from Wayne State wouldn't hurt at all. 
Adding any other school not only Wayne State, but other schools around Detroit like U of Detroit Mercy  would also help. The best thing about this proposal is the money we save. When using colleges we can get free work for college credit. Most college internships in any other field will not pay their students, they only get college credit and this solution will solve the economic problem. 
With the economic problem solved, we also solve the ethical problem. When a body comes in to the morgue now we wont have to wait to do research or test with more workers.  We as a city need to use our resources more wisely. In the heart of Detroit we have one of the top three universities of Michigan at our disposal and to not use them would be a step away from fixing our problems.  In conclusion, I believe that we can solve the economical and ethical problem of the Wayne County morgue by using college unpaid internships from close schools like Detroit Mercy and Wayne State University.


Bibliography

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"Bodies Pile Up In Detroit Morgue, People Can't Afford Burials | News One." Breaking News for Black America | News One. Web. 29 Nov. 2011. <http://newsone.com/nation/news-one-staff/bodies-pile-up-in-detroit-morgue-people-cant-afford-burials/>.

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