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Following is a question by the Hon Bernard Chan and a written reply by the Secretary for Health, Welfare and Food, Dr York Chow, in the Legislative Council today (June 7):
Question:
Will the Government inform this Council of:
(a) the current number of forensic pathologists in the Department of Health; and
(b) the respective numbers of bodies handled by hospital mortuaries and public mortuaries in each of the past three years; among them, the number of those which required autopsy by forensic pathologists for investigating the cause of death, and the average time they had to be stored in mortuaries before forensic pathologists performed autopsy on them?
Reply:
Madam President,
Schedule 1 to the Coroners Ordinance (Cap 504) sets out the types of death cases which are required to be reported to the Coroner for a decision on whether it is necessary to carry out an enquiry into the cause of the death. The Ordinance also empowers the Coroner to make an order for an autopsy to be performed on a dead body. Generally speaking, the bodies of persons who died in hospitals are handled by hospital mortuaries while the bodies of those who were involved in criminal cases and died while in detention are handled by public mortuaries under the Department of Health (DH). Besides, DH's public mortuaries also receive the bodies of persons who died in a place other than a hospital or in the Accident and Emergency Department of a hospital. Pathologists of the Hospital Authority (HA) and DH's forensic pathologists are responsible for performing autopsies on bodies kept in hospital mortuaries and in DH's public mortuaries respectively. Below is my reply to the questions seriatim:
(a) Currently, there are 16 forensic pathologists in the DH.
(b) The numbers of bodies handled by all hospital mortuaries (note) under the HA in the past three years are as follows:
2003 2004 2005
29 248 29 947 31 527
Among them, the numbers of those which required an autopsy by HA's pathologists (the total of such pathologists is 70) for establishing the cause of death are as follows:
2003 2004 2005
889 765 704
The numbers of bodies handled by DH's public mortuaries in the past three years are as follows:
2003 2004 2005
6 714 6 480 6 875
Among them, the numbers of those which required an autopsy by DH's forensic pathologists for establishing the cause of death are as follows:
2003 2004 2005
3 731 3 312 3 256
According to the Coroners Ordinance, there is an established procedure for the Coroner to make a decision on whether an autopsy is required for establishing the cause of death. The police will first conduct a preliminary inquiry upon the delivery of a dead body to a hospital mortuary/a public mortuary of the DH. Arrangements would then be made for the police officer tasked to handle the case to accompany the next of kin for identification of the body at the mortuary. After that, hospital staff/public mortuary staff will forward the documentation of the case to the Coroner for a review as soon as practicable. For cases where an autopsy is required for establishing the cause of death, the Coroner will usually issue an Order to make an autopsy to the mortuary within the same day of receiving the documentation. Depending on their prevailing workload, HA's pathologists/DH's forensic pathologists will as far as possible conduct the autopsy within the next working day after receipt of the order. The waiting time for individual bodies to undergo an autopsy is determined by factors such as the progress of police investigation and identification process, the time taken by the Coroner to make a decision on the case as well as the workload of the mortuary concerned. In addition, in some cases, bodies may have to be transferred from one hospital to another hospital for an autopsy because of the availability of certain facilities. Under normal circumstances, autopsies will be performed in hospitals within five working days from the date of death of the persons concerned, whereas those in public mortuaries will be performed in two or three working days after the delivery of the bodies. If the case so warrants, the police and forensic pathologists may immediately start the process of body identification and seek the issue of an order from the Coroner to perform an autopsy on the body as soon as possible.
(note)ĄG The numbers of bodies handled by the mortuaries under the HA are an aggregate of the numbers of bodies handled by each of its hospital mortuaries. Under certain circumstances, double counting of the body may occur, say, in a case where a body is required to be transferred from one mortuary to another mortuary equipped with autopsy facilities for storage to facilitate an autopsy. Thus, the above numbers may be slightly higher than the numbers of bodies actually handled.
Ends/Wednesday, June 7, 2006
Issued at HKT 12:40
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