LGH diener is a regular working guy IM BAIGENT had had a busy weekend at the morgue. On call 24 hours a day, the affable Lions Gate Hospi- tal diener had been pulled away from his weekend activities to help process 21 deaths. By Elizabeth Collings News Reporter The hospital’s morgue has on- ly 18 spaces: room, Baigent says, had to be made. “*We have to clear space out, it’s just a basic fact of this place. There’s no rhyme or reason to death, Like | say, the yearly numbers always stay in proportion, but just how they come, you never know. It always seems to be feast or famine, there’s no such thing as middle of the road here.** At 36, Baigent has spent more than half his life in’ the **business’’ as he calls it. **When I was 14, my uncle owned a funeral home so I was in there working after school — you know, lifting this barge and toting that bale, and so I got an exposure to the funeral end of the business.’’ Along the road to his job as LGH’s diener, Baigent did stints as a military police officer with the army and a civilian police officer in Delta, but he says “‘being a policeman was not my cup of tea, it was too violent.”’ But his police contacts led him LGH morgue ins and outs HE WORD “autopsy”? — from the Latin roots ‘auto’ or ‘myself’ and ‘op- sy,’ ‘I see’? — roughly translates to ‘‘I see with my own eyes’? or ‘‘eye- witness.”’ And that is what the ! pathologist does, says Dr. Tim Hughes, LGH’s head of anatomical pathology. In an interview with the News, Hughes described the operation of the morgue at LGH: *® approximately 1,000 bodies pass through the morgue each year; © typically three to five bodies are in the morgue at any given time; ethe morgue is in effect a temporary repository for bodies, which are kept at 40°F to slow decomposition; © the autopsy room is made of two autopsy tables (one with a down vacuum) and 18 spaces where bodies are stored until they are picked up by the funeral home; ® the consent of the family is needed before an autopsy can be performed; *the morgue has a 25 per cent autopsy rate; ¢ aproximately 350 autopsies are performed in the hospital annually; ; © 50 per cent of the autopsies are ordered by the coroner. a Sunday, October 28. 1990 - North Shore News - 3 A A INSIDE THE MORGUE nated by his job. ‘You learn a tot about humanity and people, working in the morgue,” he says. to an eight-year job at the now defunct Vancouver coroner’s of- fice (which is now the B.C. Coroner’s Service). In 1981, the strings of Baigent's varied backgrounc came together when he started in: a summer relief position at LGH and later became diener. Iv’s a job that few covet and even fewer understand. Baigent spends only a small part of his time on such clinical aspects of his job as assisting the pathologists in autopsies. The bulk of his job — 80 per cent he estimates — involves dealing with the public. “When someone dies, it’s not something that people can rehearse for. | can help them if they have questions about how do you make funeral arrange- ments — they have absolutely no idea. Because most people just think that grandad will die and he just pops up in a casket at the funeral. They have no concept of what goes on in between and then again, until it occurs, why would they?”’ Part of Baigent’s philosophy NEWS photo Cindy Goodman DR. TIM Hughes, clinical head of anatomical pathology, and Pamela Friedrich, the administrative director of the laboratory, Say the role of the lab at LGH — the communiiy. and the morgue — is to serve — which is backed by depart- ment director Pamela Friedrich — is a commitment to the public that stands out beyond the diener’s job description. Recently a couple visiting Vancouver from Toronto faced a seven to 10-day slog through red tape after the woman suffered a stillbirth. “*T just took all the paperwork up to Vital Statistics,’’ Baigent says, ‘‘and got everything regis- tered, got a burial permit and took the small remains up to First Memorial, and they NEWS nhowe ‘tnay ‘Goodman THE DIENER: morgue attendant Jim Baigent says he has yet to meet someone who is not fasci- 46 When someone dies. it’s not something that people car rehearse for...Because most people just think that granddad will die and he Just pops up in a casket at the funeral. They have no concept of what goes on in between and then again, until it occurs, why wouid they? 99 cremated i far me while 1 waited. And | got back and was able to give the family same documentation and a small box of ashes to take back with them. “That's where the satisfaction comes into this job. As I say, there are days when this job is just plain damn depressing. But when you get the opportunity to give good service for people in a very stressful and painful situa- tion, that’s where the satisfac- tion comes."* Baigent is also willing just to sit down and talk if that’s what’s required. “Sometimes you just sit down and have a good cry with peo- ple. It doesn’t upset me to cry with a little old lady who just Jost a hubby of 65 years,’’ he says, adding that many people feel less intimidated by him. “I'm not a doctor. I’m just a working guy, and a lot of people seem to be happier just talking 1o a working guy sometimes.’”* Baigent says he’s learned a lot about humans in his years as a diener, but there are always sur- prises. See Sympatitetic page @ Aging N. Shore population Keeps hospital morgue busy HEN MOST people consider a hospital’s morgue and morgue staff, the subject tends to prompt insensitive com- ments. By Elizabeth Collings News Reporter Tasteless jokes (‘How’s work? It must be dead.”), nervous twit- ters, ambivalence and even hos- tility are standard responses. After all, it’s only human to avoid considering one’s mortali- ty. But when a person dies, that death and those affected by the death deserve to be treated with dignity, and that’s what North Shore residents can expect in their encounters with the Lions Gate Hospital morgue. And virtually all North Shore residents will eventually have contact with the LGH morgue. “If you're a North Shore res- ident, unfortunately, af some point in your life, you're proba- bly going to deal with the morgue,”* says Pamela Friedrich, adminstrative director of labora- tory medicine. Moreover, Friedrich says that because of the North Shore’s ag- ing population and today’s longer life expectancy, the staff at LGH’s morgue expect to be even busier than they are now. Working under the histopathology section of labora- tory department, the actual size of the staff di::ctly involved with the morgue is sinail, Dr. Tim Hugh:s, head of anatomical pathology, spends about 25 per cent of his work at the hospital with autopsies, while the remaining time is spent doing such lab work as operating-room biopsies. Hughes and the other three pathologists who perform autop- sies deal with the clinical side of a death. Meanwhile, LGH’s diener Jim Baigent, who assists in autopsies, estimates that 80 per cent of his job involves working with the public. If ‘‘working’’ with the public sounds like a broad, catch-all phrase, it’s meant to be. Baigent will do everything from helping an elderly lady view the body of her late husband to participating in a religious service in the morgue for the family of the deceased. Sometimes called the morgue attendant, Baigent also assists the pathologists in the autopsies and communicates with the cor- oner, the police if necessary, funeral directors, and govern- mental agencies. The morgue and the LGH laboratory — with approximate- ly 80 staff members — is ac- credited every five years, and was recently raised to the more sophisticated level-three category by the B.C. Medical Association.