Kingsport recently cut funding from the budget to bury (or cremate?) the homeless and the impoverished. Evidently the bodies now get sent to a company that will harvest whatever they can from the remains, send some other stuff to anatomy classes, and then cremate whatever is left and return that to whomever. Thoughts?
How is that legal? If someone doesn't pay for burial, they become a commodity up for grabs? I feel like the homeless are getting ripped off.
To be honest I glanced at the article as I was eating breakfast and may have gotten some details mixed up. But I guess your loved one gets processed for free and in exchange you agree to let med students take out his liver and learn about the hepatic portal system. A more effective solution would be to process them into food and use it to feed the homeless.
It was Sullivan County that did this. Kingsport and Bristol are in the county (my neighboring county). This has been a topic for a while here. According to the local paper, the family has 2 choices: donate the body to science which remains are eventually cremated or find the money to bury them somewhere other than county's pauper burial fund which is no more. http://m.timesnews.net/article/9524576/sullivan-ends-pauper-burial-service
Hmm. I guess that is fair. It sure isn't right to make the tax payers foot the bill when there is another option.
I would like to think counties could come up with the money to give someone a dignified -- but cost-effective -- burial if the family wished it. This troubles me a bit.
Philosophically I agree with you, but I would at least like to see the budget line on this one. It might also be a good place for a charitable or religious group to step up to the plate and provide assistance if the costs are completely unreasonable.
I know this sounds awful, but I know for a fact that animals can be cremated from 50 to 100 bucks. Why can't there be regional service to do the same with unclaimed bodies that doesn't involve unrequested donations to science? Couldn't the counties of East Tennessee pool resources and come up with something? It isn't like there are thousands of dead homeless every year in the entire state.
Seriously, what would the actual cost to cremate a body and place the ashes in a pauper's cemetery be? It can't be that much.
I feel like we could build a brick and mortar furnace fueled by propane in the back yard, that would do the job well enough.
We may be able to start the process early with their consent, by offering them everclear and other highly flammable spirits to their heart's content.