An investigation is underway in Glasgow, after a serious error at a hospital in the city resulted in a wrong body being incinerated.
The mistaken delivery of the body from the hospital to the funeral home was only discovered after the funeral service and cremation.
The incident had a double impact, causing deep distress to both the family of the cremated body and a second family who were unable to say goodbye to their man as planned.
According to the Guardian, NHS officials have apologized apologized to the two families affected by the mistake at Queen Elizabeth University Hospital, Scotland’s largest hospital. The hospital falls under NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde, which admitted the incident was due to human error.
It is understood that the required procedures for identifying and labelling the bodies before they were transported from the morgue were not followed. An internal investigation has been launched into the incident, which reportedly occurred last month, and the staff involved have been suspended.
The Queen Elizabeth University Hospital has already been the focus of a public inquiry, following a series of infection outbreaks and concerns raised about its water and ventilation systems, just three years after it was built in 2015.
Last September, Jane Grant, who led the organization’s board of directors from 2017-2025, was asked questions about how the hospital communicates with patients’ families as part of the same inquiry.
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