SEMINOLE COUNTY, Fla. – AdventHealth has reached capacity at its hospital morgues due to an influx of COVID-19 patients.

What You Need To Know

  • Morgues at AdventHealth hospitals have reached capacity

  • Funeral homes are also dealing with space issue amid rising COVID-19 deaths

  • Tommy Hayes, III of Hayes Brothers Funeral Home says bookings have doubled in the last six months

The hospital system has started to rent refrigerated coolers in Orange, Osceola, Polk, Seminole, and Volusia counties. 

Phones have never run like they have in the past six months for Tommy Hayes, III.

When you enter the Hayes Brothers Funeral Home in Altamonte Springs, the phone is likely already ringing.

“Good morning, Hayes Brothers Funeral Home,” isn’t how people are greeted at the door, but can be heard from the office next to it.

An embalmer and funeral director for 37 years, Tommy Hayes III and his industry has had to make some tough decisions.

Entering his chapel, he explains fewer people are allowed in because of COVID and social distancing.  

It’s not just spacing for families and friends. It’s finding space or a place for their loved one until a funeral can take place. It’s something that the funeral director now juggles.

“The funeral homes have limited space, the storage facilities have limited space,” Hayes said. “The crematory has limited space, and with the overwhelming volume of cases coming in it is backlogging everybody.”

To help with the backlog that begins at the hospital system, Central Florida hospitals have now found other ways to store bodies.

There were 14 different portable morgue units brought in to support both Advent Health and Orlando Health healthcare organizations, according to the Orange County Public Safety Director.

Only three to four people can be stored at Hayes’ funeral home at one time, but hospitals continue to try and prioritize space.

“They want to get to the very minute they can expect some relief,” Hayes said.

Between storing loved ones, spacing loved ones in a chapel, and seeing bookings double in just the past six months, Hayes admits he has never experienced anything like this in his nearly 40 years in business.

“We have not seen this type of influx in the funeral industry,” Hayes said. “Even during AIDS and HIV, it was not to this level.”

All the funerals that Hayes Brothers Funeral Homes are hosting are not all for COVID deaths, but he does say they account for more than a quarter of them.