Dillon tours Forensic ‘bone centre’

At the end of the visit, Dillon told Newsday he will be taking to Cabinet a proposal for additional funding in the new fiscal year for better infrastructure for the Centre. In the interim he has promised to provide additional resources and intends to increase staff at the mortuary to assist the pathologists. Dillon’s tour began at three o’clock in the afternoon after he attended the weekly Cabinet meeting.

He was given a tour of the mortuary and got a first hand view of the storage area where bodies are kept as well as the area of the fridges where skeletal remains were strewn and not properly bagged and tagged. He was also shown boxes containing skeletal remains and was informed that there is enough space for additional fridges to store additional bodies in the event of a natural disaster or terrorist activities.

Newsday understands that officials of Dillon’s Ministry are liaising with the Ministry of Health to get additional manpower for the mortuary of the Centre. Yesterday, Dr Alexandrov pointed out to Dr Dillon that the mortuary has a capacity to accommodate 120 corpses but there are currently only two fridges and in some instances when there is no room to store bodies, funeral homes keep bodies until the Centre is ready to carry out autopsies.

He also asked Dillon for additional pathologists saying both he and pathologist Dr Eslyn McDonald Burris have too great a workload at the Centre.

He highlighted that on Tuesday, he completed his 333rd autopsy for this year and could lose his license since international law stipulates that a pathologist perform 250 to 300 autopsies a year.

On August 2, Dr Alexandrov became the first pathologist in the Commonwealth to refuse to perform autopsies as a form of protest as he cited gross manpower shortage at the Centre and infrastructural deficiencies.

As a result over 15 autopsies were not done immediately after the long Emancipation holiday weekend which saw the country hit by a series of murders.

Dr Burris is expected to resume duties on Monday when her vacation ends while Government is in the process of renewing the contract of pathologist Dr Hughvon des Vignes.

Minister Dillon said the process of acquiring additional pathologists, mortuary attendants and house officers for the Centre is currently taking place.

“Having viewed for myself what is taking place within the walls of the FSC I will be requesting a full report from certain persons before making recommendations to deal with the issues,” Dillon told Newsday.

He said a first phase will see the most pressing problems being ironed out while in the second phase, every effort will be made to bring the FSC up to international standards.

He thanked all those persons including Dr Alexandrov for continuing to work at the Centre despite setbacks and promised that under his watch every effort will be made to correct the problems being faces on a daily basis. “There are a lot of areas that need improvement and I’ll be working closely with the director (Arlette Lewis) and the pathologist to improve the working environment at the Centre. I am fully aware that it is a very important facility in the fight against crime and we will continue to build the capacity and strengthen the FSC.” Dr Alexandrov described the Minister’s visit as very successful and said he was heartened that a minister took time off to view for himself the problems at Forensics. “Minister Dillon visited my office and I showed him the collection of CDs of all autopsies I have done from day one and he was really shocked that we don’t have a photographer.

“When he asked me who takes pictures and I told him I did, then we went to the autopsy room which we cannot use at this time because when it was being refurbished they did not take care of the drain system.

Then I took him to the fridges and showed him that we do not have enough room to keep bodies and my main purpose was to show him.

I am really happy he saw everything with his own eyes.

Hopefully a lot of things are going to be changed for the best,” Alexandrov said. Newsday understands Lewis accompanied Dillon on the tour.