video transcript

ROUGH CUT (NO REPORTER NARRATION) STORY: A group of Chileans stormed a morgue on Wednesday (November 28) after a strike held up the handover of the remains of loved ones at a state-run morgue. Relatives of the deceased whose bodies were being held at the morgue entered a building in Santiago, angrily arguing with officials from the Legal Medical Service (SML). The people say the strike has held up the remains of the dead in the hospital, and they are worried about the state of the bodies. However, SML director Patricio Bustos said the proper steps were being taken to conserve the remains until they are moved out for burial. "Let's not add problems that don't exist to the pain of the families. There are no problems with the conservation of the bodies. What there is is a regrettable situation in which these incidents that we all know about have occurred. Obviously, that means we will first have to make an effort to preserve the dead in the correct way and that's being done," Bustos said. Relatives complained that the understaffed morgue has untreated bodies in the hallways after a week of strikes. The police eventually removed the relatives of the dead from the morgue.