David Collins is spending the last few months he has left with five terminally ill relatives worrying about how he will scrape together the $62,500 needed to pay for their funerals.

Key points: The cost of transporting and storing corpses in remote communities is causing hardship for residents

The cost of transporting and storing corpses in remote communities is causing hardship for residents Concerns have also been raised over the biohazard risks of transporting the bodies

Concerns have also been raised over the biohazard risks of transporting the bodies An Aboriginal organisation said bodies were being stored in people's homes for weeks

On top of spiralling costs for remote NT residents, a Senate inquiry has revealed decomposing bodies are being transported on ageing aircraft without refrigeration, potentially posing a massive biohazard risk.

Mr Collins's family is wondering how he will find $12,500 to pay for flights to transport the body of his brother-in-law, who is in palliative care, to a mortuary when he passes away.

The community in which he is based, Galiwin'ku on Elcho Island, does not yet have their mortuary running, so deceased community members have to be transported to the nearest morgue until their funeral service is organised.

Mr Collins said charter flights for a body to Nhulunbuy could cost a minimum of $3,600 return, $10,000 to Darwin and $14,000 to Katherine.

Storing the body also had additional costs of up to $150 a day at a funeral home if the hospitals' mortuaries are full.

Mr Collins expects another four people to pass away in the next several months due to illness, so they might be paying that cost four times over.

In one year he counted 30 people he knew who died.

"No-one has that kind of money lying around," Mr Collins said.

"We've also got to come up with all the other money and arrangement for the funeral.

"Most of my family, [[like] most people in the community, are welfare receipts, and so coming up with that money where people are struggling to feed themselves, let alone send their loved one to a mortuary … people here are pretty well, seven days a week, in a state of mourning."

Bodies of those who pass away on Galiwin'ku and other remote East Arnhem homelands are often housed in morgues until it is time for their cultural burial, for which there is no fixed timeframe, when the body is then returned to the community.

Galiwin'ku man David Collins (right) says his family will struggle to pay to transport deceased loved ones to the nearest mortuary. ( Supplied )

Concerns over biohazard risks

In a Senate submission investigating regional airports and airfares, Arnhem Land Progress Aboriginal (ALPA) corporation former general manager Chris Hayward said bodies were being transported to Darwin in small aircraft with no refrigeration.

"I went and talked to some funeral operators down south … they were horrified because of the biohazards and all this sort of stuff," his submission read.

He said there were instances of bodies rejected from funeral homes because of their condition.

"They can be in an advanced state of decomposition.

"You've got bodily fluids leaking out.

"One funeral operator said to me he would rather not accept bodies from a remote location for that reason."

New mortuaries, old and continuous problems

Currently there are about 20 mortuaries functioning around the Northern Territory, four of which were recently built as a NT Government initiative.

But private Indigenous consultant Joe Morrison said these mortuaries were often full.

Mr Morrison was chief executive officer of the Northern Land Council until November last year and said the council was paying more than $300,000 yearly to support Indigenous communities in transporting loved ones to mortuaries.

He said while the Federal Government was initially supportive of an Indigenous-run funeral service, that never eventuated.

ALPA spends $70,000 annually on travel costs for about 30 deceased people who would need to be stored before a funeral service takes place.

ALPA chief executive officer Alistair King said when a family could not afford the flights, there was no support and a mortuary was not available, bodies would be stored at home for a few weeks.

"Other times if they can't get the body out and can't get assistance, they'll use a room in the house and close it all up with air-conditioning it to try and maintain the body before the funeral," he said.

Both Mr Morrison and Mr King were calling on the Territory and Federal Government to take responsibility for supporting communities.

The NT Government has been contacted for comment.