By Damion Mitchell, Staff ReporterAMIDST THE controversy surrounding the missing child of Pansy Campbell and Leroy McLean, there are fresh concerns that the corpses of babies sent from the Mandeville Hospital to be stored at Lyn's Funeral Home, Mandeville, regularly pile up, to sometimes as many as 40 bodies, before they are retrieved by the hospital for disposal.
UNIDENTIFIABLE BODIES
In the process, the name tags attached to the bodies of the infants often deteriorate as a result of condensation and, according to an official at the funeral home, there are cases where the bodies become unidentifiable. However, The Gleaner has been informed that in the case of the controversial body the name tag was still affixed, as it was in a transparent plastic case.
"Sometimes we have up to 40 (baby corpses) before they (hospital officials) come to retrieve them for incineration," Calvin Lyn, proprietor of the funeral home, said yesterday. Adding that "from time to time we have to call them (hospital officials) to come and clear out some of the bodies because we are fighting for space." But, Mr. Lyn said the funeral home was often informed that the hospital was "trying to complete the paper work" in order to dispose of the babies' bodies.
STORAGE BY AGREEMENT
In 1997, when the morgue at the Mandeville Hospital became inoperable, Lyn's Funeral Home was contracted to store the bodies of persons who had died at the hospital, until arrangements were made for their disposal. However, according to Mr. Lyn, the bodies of babies are stored based on "an agreement" given that the funeral home does not charge for their storage.
Records at Lyn's Funeral Home show that, for example, the body of a baby which was taken to the facility on March 28, 2002 was not collected by the hospital until August 30, 2002. In another case, a baby was taken to the facility on April 30, 2002 and was removed by the hospital for disposal June 10, 2002. Mr. Lyn stressed that these cases were not isolated.
As a result, he said, there has always been a backlog in the number of baby corpses at the home. "We always have a backlog because the paper work is so slow over there (the hospital) for whatever reason," he said.
NO CONTACT
Numerous attempts were made to contact Sheryl Cameron, the hospital's chief executive officer, for comments on the matter, however, she was reportedly unavailable to comment as she was in a meeting. Acting director of the Southern Regional Health Authority, Dr. Michael Coombs, was also reported to be unavailable when his office was contacted. Neither Mrs. Cameron nor Dr. Coombs returned the calls.
In the meantime, the Ministry of Health says that within another three months the morgue at the Mandeville Regional Hospital will be back in operation. Grace Allen-Young, Permanent Secretary in the Ministry, has said that the Ministry is in the process of completing work on the facility to make it available for use by October.
