Mortuaries shake-up ordered after scandal of lost corpse

[amg]

A complete overhaul of the way bodies are handled at Hong Kong's public mortuaries has been announced after blundering medical staff lost the corpse of a newborn baby boy.
The sweeping changes come amid accusations that there is a culture of "lack of care for the dead" among some Hospital Authority staff.

After apologizing again to the parents of the infant at a Legislative Council panel meeting on health services yesterday, authority chief executive Shane Solomon announced a five-point plan he hopes will prevent a repeat of the latest blunder. It includes:

Remains and their identity will be verified each working day;

Transparent bags will be used to hold the remains of babies;

The bags will be kept in semi-transparent boxes;

CCTV cameras will be installed inside mortuaries; and

Hospital managers will audit mortuary staff performance at least once every six months.

The moves were announced as Secretary for Food and Health York Chow Yat-ngok warned the authority will use strict measures to deal with staff responsible if an investigation finds human error is involved.

Lawmakers, including the Federation of Trade Unions' Wong Kwok-hing, said the incident last month was due to a lack of respect for the dead among authority staff.

Chow agreed it revealed that some staff may lack a proper sense of mission and care.

Solomon also admitted that a previous system introduced to improve mortuary services in mid-2007 did little to strengthen care and respect for the dead.

East Cluster chief executive Loretta Yam Yin-chun said the mortuary at Eastern Hospital was not full at the time of the incident.

Under such conditions, workers should not have placed two corpses in the same compartment, nor was the hospital aware that had been done until the loss of the baby's body was reported by staff.

The mortuary attendant responsible for handling the corpse is suspended because he has been emotionally unstable since the incident. He will be transferred once he returns to work.

The mortuary technician who waited three days to report the incident to management has been transferred to other duties. Yam said punishments will not be ordered until after a review panel completes its investigation.

On December 15, the corpse of the baby was placed in a mortuary compartment next to that of an adult man.

The man's body was released four days later, and a routine check found the baby's body missing on January 2.