Post by Logan on Jun 26, 2016 5:15:43 GMT -6
Overdoses leading to overwork--medical examiners say their staffs can’t keep up with soaring rate of drug deaths
HARTFORD — Soaring numbers of overdose deaths are adding to woes already plaguing the offices of medical examiners and coroners, resulting in a shortage of places to store bodies and long delays in autopsies and toxicology testing.
The office of Connecticut’s chief medical examiner has considered renting a refrigerated truck to store extra bodies because its storage area has neared capacity at times. In Wisconsin, the Milwaukee County medical examiner’s office sometimes has to put bodies on Army-style cots in its refrigerated storage area because it runs out of gurneys. The Hamilton County coroner’s office in Cincinnati has a 100-day backlog of DNA testing for police drug investigations, largely because of increased overdose deaths.
Medical examiners and coroners say overdose deaths are adding to a strain on their offices that already includes a surge of urban violence, inadequate facilities, budget problems, and the shortage of forensic pathologists qualified to perform autopsies.
“There are many, many parts of the country that have substantial problems,” says Dr. David Fowler, Maryland’s chief medical examiner and president of the National Association of Medical Examiners, referring to medical examiner and coroner offices. “I think the drug overdoses have substantially increased the problems.”
Read more: www.journalinquirer.com/connecticut_and_region/overdoses-leading-to-overwork-medical-examiners-say-their-staffs-can/article_558a334e-3a7c-11e6-8a75-d74ed426a321.html
HARTFORD — Soaring numbers of overdose deaths are adding to woes already plaguing the offices of medical examiners and coroners, resulting in a shortage of places to store bodies and long delays in autopsies and toxicology testing.
The office of Connecticut’s chief medical examiner has considered renting a refrigerated truck to store extra bodies because its storage area has neared capacity at times. In Wisconsin, the Milwaukee County medical examiner’s office sometimes has to put bodies on Army-style cots in its refrigerated storage area because it runs out of gurneys. The Hamilton County coroner’s office in Cincinnati has a 100-day backlog of DNA testing for police drug investigations, largely because of increased overdose deaths.
Medical examiners and coroners say overdose deaths are adding to a strain on their offices that already includes a surge of urban violence, inadequate facilities, budget problems, and the shortage of forensic pathologists qualified to perform autopsies.
“There are many, many parts of the country that have substantial problems,” says Dr. David Fowler, Maryland’s chief medical examiner and president of the National Association of Medical Examiners, referring to medical examiner and coroner offices. “I think the drug overdoses have substantially increased the problems.”
Read more: www.journalinquirer.com/connecticut_and_region/overdoses-leading-to-overwork-medical-examiners-say-their-staffs-can/article_558a334e-3a7c-11e6-8a75-d74ed426a321.html