Patients and workers at Mater Dei Hospital were last week shocked to find corpses wrapped in body bags lining an underground corridor.

The body bags were temporarily placed in the corridor, at Level -2, until they were transferred to the mortuary.

It happened because a lift that connects the hospital’s wards to a tunnel running between the hospital and the morgue is out of service. The tunnel, on Level -3, is only accessible via this lift.

The corpses were placed in the corridor until they were picked up and taken to the mortuary by ambulance.

Sources told Times of Malta that this unusual practice is being carried out until the lift is changed to a more energy efficient one, as part of the process of replacing all lifts within the hospital.

The situation was flagged by patients of the hyperbaric unit, which is located in the same corridor.

Although the corpses were then screened off, their presence did not go down well with both patients and staff members, who expressed shock that they had been left there unattended.

One source counted five corpses there at one time.

A spokesperson for the Health Ministry confirmed that patients who had died were being taken to Level -2 from the wards until the lift was fixed. However, she denied the dead bodies had been left waiting or unattended.

“At the moment, when a patient passes away, the corpse is taken through Level -2, then out from the ambulance garage and transferred to the mortuary by a special transporter,” she said when asked to confirm the practice.

“No corpses are left waiting or unattended and the transport vehicle has been modified to be respectful to the deceased. All corpses are taken care of by trained personnel,” she added.

She said that work on the mortuary lift was “practically completed” and should be back in operation this week.

All the lifts at the hospital are gradually being upgraded and be more energy efficient, she confirmed.

Earlier this summer, two of the three lifts connecting the hospital to the car park were out of service for several weeks.

Maintenance works were scheduled to take place between July 27 and August 8 but the work was not completed on time.

The lifts were back in operation at the end of August.