Cardboard hospital beds that double as COFFINS are unveiled by Colombian ad company as a way to help poor families that can't pay for funeral expenses amid coronavirus pandemic

A Colombian advertising company unveiled hospital beds that can transform into coffins in response to shortages of both amid the coronavirus pandemic.    

ABC Displays of Bogotá has created a cardboard bed with metal railings that designers say can double as a casket if a patient dies.

Company manager Rodolfo Gómez said he was inspired to find a way to help after watching events unfold recently in nearby Ecuador.

Families in the coastal city of Guayaquil waited with dead loved ones in their homes for days last month as COVID-19 cases surged. 

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Company manager Rodolfo Gómez (center) said he wanted to make the item after watching Ecuador struggle during the coronavirus pandemic 

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ABC Displays, a Colombian advertising company, created a hospital bed that can turn into a coffin 

Many could not find or were unable to afford a wood coffin, using donated cardboard ones instead.

'Poor families don't have a way of paying for a coffin,' Gómez said.  

The beds can hold a weight of 330 pounds and will cost about $85 each, Gómez said. 

Gómez said he plans to donate 10 of his new beds to Colombia's Amazonas department, where resources are in short supply. 

So far there is no indication whether the beds will be put to use and no orders have been placed.

The Bogota-based company is usually at work on advertisements but has been mostly paralyzed over the last month as Colombia remains on lockdown.  

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10 beds are expected to be donated to Colombia's Amazonas department, a region where medical supplies are dwindling 

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Pictured: Rodolfo Gomez (center) sits with his employees on top of a box to demonstrate the sturdiness of their design of a cardboard box intended to serve as both a hospital bed or coffin for COVID-19 patients

He said he worked with a private clinic on the design, which he hopes will be put to use in emergency clinics that might become short on beds.  

Ecuador has recorded more than 28,000 confirmed cases and a death toll of 1,700. Colombia has 10,000 cases and 428 deaths. 

Both pale in comparison to the United States, which leads the world in coronavirus infections with 1,321,563 cases and 78,380 dead.  

At least one doctor was skeptical of how sturdy a cardboard bed might be. 

He also warned that any corpses should first be placed in a sealed bag before being put in a cardboard coffin to avoid potentially spreading the disease.

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The beds can reportedly hold 330lbs and each one costs $85

Similarly, funeral home workers and officials in New York City have also tried to solve the influx of dead COVID-19 patients. 

Residents in New York were shocked when Police discovered 100 bodies stacked in unrefrigerated trucks outside a funeral home in Brooklyn in late April.

Authorities dispatched to the scene after neighbors complained for weeks about the smell.  

Authorities found two unrefrigerated U-Haul box trucks being used to store the bodies outside of Andrew T. Cleckley Funeral Home in Flatlands after neighbors filmed body bags being dragged into them in recent days.

There were as many as 50 corpses being stored in each truck, according to ABC News, as the facility struggled to keep up with the overwhelming surge of bodies due to the coronavirus outbreak.

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Workers move bodies to a refrigerated truck from the Andrew T. Cleckley Funeral Home in the Brooklyn Wednesday after authorities found that the facility was storing up to 100 bodies in two unrefrigerated U-Haul storage vans

Police found the bodies in various stages of decomposition.

The owner told city officials that its freezer had stopped working and they were forced to use the trucks as storage while bodies awaited burial or cremation. 

'For weeks already, there have been trucks constantly outside unloading bodies. You could smell the death,' Jay Fredo told New York Daily News.

'Some of them have been dropped. I know it's a pandemic, but this is crazy. It's sick.'

No criminal charges were brought but the home was cited for failing to control the odors.

Before that makeshift morgues began popping up around the city and residents balked after it was revealed unclaimed corpses would be buried on Hart Island.

Local hospitals were quickly overwhelmed by an unexpected swell of COVID-19 patients, deaths and lack of important medical supplies.