Staff at King Edward VII Memorial Hospital have come under fire from opposition ministers who have accused them of behaving insensitively by storing bodies in a container while the mortuary is being renovated.

The UBP?s shadow health and family services minister Louise Jackson said the morgue had been in need of refurbishment for years, and the current work appears to be ill-planned as well as overdue.

?I feel that the way this was handled was very insensitive. Obviously these things do happen, but this container is at a service entrance with the door facing outwards where people who use that entrance could be in full view of it when it?s opened,? she said.

?It seems as if perhaps they could have put a partition there. It seems a bit cold to me to put the container out there at a busy entrance rather than some inconspicuous place. There must have been a more sensitive way of handling this.?

Michael Dunkley, who was shadow health minister until last month and is now shadow minister for labour, also criticised the arrangements.

?I?m pleased that the renovations are now being done, and I don?t want to hold back progress but I could not believe my eyes when I saw that container pictured on the front of the paper,? he said.

?Anyone who had any compassion would not allow this to take place. It is in a busy area and the doors will swing open. There?s no privacy and any grieving family will be in a worse state of affairs because of the way their loved ones are being handled.

?This is a cold and callous way to treat people.?

A hospital spokeswoman had previously stated that corpses are being treated with ?the highest degree of respect? while the building work is carried out.

And Health and Family Services Minister Patrice Minors said yesterday: ?I?ve been assured by the Bermuda Hospitals Board that any body that may need to temporarily be stored in this refrigerated container is being treated with the utmost dignity.

?I?m comfortable with the temporary arrangement that the board has put in place and I don?t have any grave concerns.

?There?s a need for significant upgrading of the autopsy room and mortuary and I?m confident that the result will be one that members of a bereaved family will find to be dignified.?