Autopsy backlog in Tobago being addressed

These included families of Junior Charles, Trevaughn Noray, Keylon Chapman, Quincy Daniel, Darron Boyce, Tezeria Holder, Carolyn Isaac and Hollison Wright.

On December 15, Charles of Mason Hall was found dead at his Belmont Road home. On December 18, Noray, Chapman and Daniel were involved in a vehicular accident along the Claude Noel Highway.

Noray and Chapman died upon impact while Daniel died the following day at the Scarborough General Hospital.

On December 22, four year-old Tezeria died after complaining of feeling unwell, while on December 26, Black Rock resident Boyce fell some 50 feet when he went to retrieve a trapped kite in a tree.

On Tuesday, former KFC supervisor Isaac was found hanging at her Mt. Grace home and the body of Wright was found at his Moriah home partially decomposed.

Alexandrov conducted the autopsies following a request made by National Security Minister, Edmund Dillon on Tuesday evening.

In an interview with Newsday yesterday, Alexandrov alleged that the backlog has occurred because one man is refusing to do his job.

Describing the mortuary compound as “a scene”, Alexandrov said this is the first time he has ever seen so many families awaiting autopsies to be conducted in Tobago.

“A pathologist has refused to conduct autopsies in Tobago and that’s an absolute crazy idea,” Alexandrov said.

“One man does not want to do his job holding the entire nation on ransom.” Alexandrov said that due to his sympathy over the grief being experienced by relatives of the dead, he agreed to forego his vacation for two days, yesterday and today, to complete the autopsies.

“My family is here including my grand-daughter. They came from the United States for ten days so I took a brief vacation to spend some time with them. Instead, yesterday (Tuesday) I got a call from the Minister of National Security. I am supposed to be on my brief vacation with my loved ones but instead I would spend my time here in the mortuary,” he said.

One family member who did not want to be identified said that the turmoil endured during the past few weeks, not knowing when they would be getting some closure, caused an unbearable pain.

“The burden seemed heavy to carry. All we want is the autopsy conducted and to bury our loved ones. This is not good enough. You know how long we have been trying to get this autopsy done in order to bring some sort of closure and just bury our deceased? They have been giving us a set of run around as they said that it was either a pathologist come from Trinidad to do the autopsy or we carry our dead to Trinidad do the autopsy and return and we blatantly refused the latter,” the family member said.

“How are families in Tobago to feel when you have loved ones just there waiting on autopsies and it seems as though they are not been taken seriously. You cannot even make funeral arrangements in the interim because you really not sure when something will be done.” She called on the authorities to address the matter with some level of urgency so that there would not be a repeat of the situation.

Meanwhile, President of the Public Services Association (PSA) and Political Leader of the Progressive Democratic Patriots (PDP), Watson Duke, was also at the mortuary to give comfort to the hurting families.

Duke said the families have been grieving for far too long as they awaited closure.

“Based on the rules of the TRHA (Tobago Regional Health Authority), every Friday between 11am and 4pm, a pathologist is supposed to be here but that has not happened for a couple Fridays,” Duke said.

“These families were further incensed when they got a call to take their families to Trinidad for the autopsies and bring them back. We are already going to Trinidad for food items, school books, clothes, ID cards, every living thing, now they telling us when they die take them to Trinidad and bring them back.” Meanwhile, Secretary of Health and Social Services Assemblyman Claudia Groome-Duke said that the TRHA board is looking into the hiring of a resident pathologist.

“As related with the Ministry of Health, we have visiting pathologists coming to the island in terms of treating with this issue. We’ve had the challenges in terms of recruiting, but they have been working assiduously and I have been in discussions with the board and they are working on ensuring that we do have a resident pathologist on the island. The idea of bodies being flown to Trinidad was a recommendation, but the board decided that it would not happen and it did not happen,” she said