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In response to press enquiries, a spokesman for the Department of Health said that a news article published in the Sing Tao Daily today (July 21) alleging that an incident of mixing up of dead body occurred in the Fu Shan Public Mortuary last week was untrue.
"As clearly stated in our reply to the Sing Tao Daily that there was an incident in July this year, in which a staff member of the mortuary concerned, while checking the particulars on the bracelet of the dead body against that on the documents before showing the body to the family concerned for identification, spotted one discrepancy such that the serial numbers were slightly different -- the "1" in the multi-digit serial number was written as "7" in the bracelet.
"In accordance with the improved procedures, the staff had double-checked and found all other particulars including name, age and sex of the deceased, police record number and rack number correct. He then asked the family concerned to view the body carefully and to double check the particulars on the deceased's bracelet to confirm the identity. In fact, the correct body was shown to the family for identification at the first instance. The body concerned was claimed by the family after detailed identification.
"The staff member had recorded the matter in the incident log book and reported it to his supervisor afterwards.
"The mortuary management has interviewed the staff concerned, contacted the family involved and reviewed the record of the Closed Circuit TV in the mortuary, and found out that no other dead body was involved in the case," the spokesman said.
The spokesman emphasized that the enhanced identification and double-checking procedures have been effective in ensuring the correct bodies are released to the right families as evident in this incident.
The spokesman said in accordance with the recommendation by an independent committee, a series of improvement measures have been put in place to improve the services in public mortuary, and additional measures, including the computerisation of the registration and identification system, will be introduced early next year.
Ends/Friday, July 21, 2006
Issued at HKT 12:55
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