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Following is a question by the Hon Ronny Tong and a written reply by the Secretary for Food and Health, Dr York Chow, in the Legislative Council today (April 22):
Question:
I have received complaints alleging that some public hospitals handed over the dead bodies of deceased patients to the Food and Environmental Hygiene Department (FEHD) for cremation when relatives of the deceased had yet to be located and informed, making it impossible for the relatives concerned to arrange burial for the deceased subsequently. Moreover, the Police will hand over unclaimed dead bodies to FEHD for cremation or burial. In this connection, will the Government inform this Council whether it knows:
(a) when a patient passed away in a public hospital or when a dead body is discovered by the Police, the respective procedures currently adopted by the public hospital and the Police to locate and notify relatives of the deceased to claim the dead body, and how they handle unclaimed dead bodies;
(b) the numbers of
(i) unclaimed dead bodies handled;
(ii) unclaimed dead bodies handed over to FEHD for cremation or burial; and
(iii) cases of relatives of the deceased requesting to get back the dead bodies already handed over to FEHD for cremation or burial which were handled respectively by public hospitals and the Police in each of the past five financial years; and
(c) whether the Hospital Authority and the Police have any mechanism in place to review the arrangements mentioned in (a), so as to ensure that relatives of the deceased can claim dead bodies in time?
Reply:
President,
(a) In respect of unclaimed dead bodies whose identities are known, the public hospitals under the Hospital Authority (HA) will, according to the established guidelines, contact the relatives of the deceased to claim the body based on the hospital admission information of the deceased. If the hospitals could not contact or have no information about the relatives of the deceased, police assistance will be sought. According to the Police's internal guidelines and handling procedures, on receipt of a request from a hospital for assistance in locating the relatives of any deceased person whose body was not claimed, the Police will send officers to visit the last known address of the deceased and/or his/her relative(s). Where the relative(s) of the deceased are located, the Police will invite them to contact the hospital concerned. The police officers will inform the hospital concerned of the outcome of their visit. Unless the relative(s) of the deceased specifically raise objection, the Police will also provide the contact details of the relative(s) of the deceased to the hospital concerned. If the dead body eventually remains unclaimed, the hospital will hand it over to the Food and Environmental Hygiene Department (FEHD), which will then arrange for the burial or cremation of the dead body in accordance with established procedures.
In case of discovery of unidentifiable dead body, the Police will carry out an investigation. The Police will conduct a detailed search at the scene where the dead body is found to seek information which may be related to the death. The Police will also take fingerprints, palm prints and DNA samples from the dead body, and make a record of information on the clothing worn on the dead body in an effort to confirm the identity of the deceased. Besides, the Police will use various possible means to try to contact the next of kin of the deceased.
Meanwhile, a Government Forensic Pathologist will perform an autopsy to ascertain the cause of death. Generally, the unclaimed dead body will be kept in the mortuary concerned for one month after the autopsy. If the Police are able to contact the relatives of the deceased before the expiry of the one-month period or any period extended for the investigation into the death, and the dead body is no longer required for the purposes of any police investigation, the mortuary will make arrangements for the relatives to claim the dead body. If the dead body remains unclaimed after the expiry of the retention period, the mortuary concerned will inform FEHD, which will then arrange for the burial or cremation of the dead body in accordance with established procedures.
(b) The numbers of unclaimed dead bodies handled by HA and the Police are shown in Annex 1 and 2 respectively. The Police do not maintain statistics on the cases in which relatives of the deceased requested to claim the dead bodies already handed over to the FEHD for cremation or burial.
(c) The Police keep the relevant internal guidelines and handling procedures under review. As for HA, its policy on handling dead bodies, including the procedures for identification and collection of dead bodies by the deceased's relatives, is subject to regular review, monitoring and necessary revision by its specialty coordinating committee of Pathology.
Ends/Wednesday, April 22, 2009
Issued at HKT 13:18
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