Autopsies to resume
Published:Thursday | June 17, 2010 | 12:00 AM
On the heels of blistering criticism about a breach of standards, the Government has promised to resume, on Friday, the conducting of post-mortems on west Kingston victims of last month's conflict between gunmen and the security forces.
But this time, the State said it would stick to the letter of a prior accord.
National Security Minister Dwight Nelson called an emergency meeting yesterday to hammer out a solution with several stakeholders, including Public Defender Earl Witter, whose protests about the examinations prompted the Government to postpone autopsies scheduled for yesterday.
The Government also pledged yesterday to adhere to the previously agreed rules of engagement on the post-mortems, after Dr Michael Pollanen, the independent observer pathologist, detailed concerns that the integrity of the exercise was in jeopardy.
List of problems
Among the problems cited were the speed at which the autopsies were being conducted; poor sanitary conditions; and insufficient supervision of assistants by government pathologist Dr Dinesh Rao.
"In order to ensure full transparency of the process, a decision has been made to have the government pathologist continue strict adherence to the established protocols as agreed to by the Ministry of National Security, the Ministry of Health, the director of public prosecutions, the public defender's office, and the independent observer pathologist, Dr Michael Pollanen," the Ministry of National Security said in press statement last night.
The Government also yielded to a request from the public defender for the recall of at least one of the bodies which were autopsied on Tuesday in an effort to retrieve a bullet fragment.
Earlier, The Gleaner obtained a letter Witter dispatched to Assistant Commissioner of Police Granville Gause, corroborating the claims that the Government's efforts to advance the process were being thwarted.
The correspondence, dated June 16, 2010, requested that some of the bodies on which post-mortems were done be recalled.
"Further to our telephone conversations this morning and earlier correspondence copied to you, I write formally to request that the corpses of the following persons upon which Dr Rao ... perform(ed) autopsies yesterday, and which you have advised me have been turned over to relatives for interment, be recalled for the reasons stated," the letter said.
Witter added: "For the record, I state that the reason for this request is that procedures adopted by Dr Rao were not consistent with the agreed protocol."
The public defender suggested that, barring recall, it was probable that essential probative evidential material would be buried.
"With respect, this would be inexcusable and, therefore, intolerable," he argued.
Yesterday morning, grief and anger came pouring out at the Spanish Town Hospital morgue in St Catherine, when relatives and loved ones facing the ordeal of witnessing the autopsies were turned back without explanation.
"Them say the Ministry of National Security stop the post-mortem until further notice," Joan Brown told The Gleaner.
"That mean say dem nuh want we fe bury we dead properly. Them want we bury fe we dead like animals," she fumed, as the sun scorched the irate group.
Brown lives in Portmore but is a former west Kingston resident.
She told The Gleaner that she was there to witness the autopsy on the body of her cousin, Jermaine Dawkins.
"Them call on the phone, told us to come down here and, when we came here this morning, it was 10 of us, but some of them a curse and a bawl. Them left," Brown said.
"We were here until we hear them say the Ministry of (National) Security say dem not to do anymore post-mortem until further notice ... . Our undertaker come from way a Manchester, them not even explain why."
Another young woman, wearing buttons emblazoned with the photos of her two slain relatives pinned near her heart, said she had travelled from Manchester.
The young woman said she would have to return home and wait indefinitely until she got word from the Ministry of National Security.