Autopsy nightmare, says observer
Published:Thursday | June 17, 2010 | 12:00 AM
Independent forensic pathologist Dr Michael Pollanen warned yesterday that the post-mortems on the bodies of casualties of the military incursion into Tivoli Gardens could be compromised.
In a letter to Public Defender Earl Witter, Pollanen complained that the conditions under which the autopsies were being carried out were unacceptable.
"Due to the current state of affairs, I must inform you that I am not confident that I will be able to discharge all my observer functions, as outlined in the agreed protocol of June 14, 2010," Pollanen told Witter.
He cautioned that if standards were not upheld, and examinations failed to progress with greater thoroughness, his report might be of limited value on the exact number and nature of all the wounds present on the bodies.
Pollanen said he would not be able to present reliable assurance that all retrievable projectile fragments have been recovered.
He suggested that this reflected the problems caused by the speed of the examinations and the conditions under which the work was being undertaken.
Agreement breached
Pollanen reported that he witnessed 10 post-mortems that were conducted by Dr Dinesh Rao of the Legal Medicine Unit in the Ministry of National Security.
Pollanen was quick to emphasise that he had no desire to be unfair to Rao.
"I observed that not all of the post-mortem examinations met the standards that were agreed by Dr Rao and me on June 14, 2010," Pollanen wrote.
He said Rao performed the first post-mortem of the day.
"He did a relatively complete examination. However, after that one case, all subsequent dissection and retrieval of projectile fragments was delegated to his assistants," he complained.
Pollanen said autopsies were performed simultaneously in adjacent rooms.
"In one room, Dr Rao observed his assistants dissecting the body. But, in the adjacent room, the assistants worked unobserved, and performed dissections and retrieved projectile fragments," he said.
According to Pollanen, in many cases, retrieval of projectile fragments occurred without the direct observation of Rao or himself.
Work incomplete
He said at the beginning of the day's work, all bodies underwent complete musculo-cutaneous dissections to determine if any concealed blunt injuries were present.
However, Pollanen said towards the end of the day, as the staff grew tired, these dissections were not completed and the undersurface of the scalp and the brain not examined for injuries.
"I believe that the actual applied standard for the post-mortem examinations was to concentrate on documenting fatal or potentially fatal gunshot wounds and to retrieve foreign bodies visible on the radiographs that were relatively simple to locate and remove," Pollanen said.
"It is my belief that the agreed protocol did not have any significant practical influence on how the post-mortems were performed," he added.
"Furthermore, I am finding it difficult to keep accurate notes of the injuries due to the simultaneous post-mortem examinations, rapidity of the examinations, and the fact that many dissections are occurring in an adjacent room."
He observed that subsequent to the autopsies, some of the bodies were piled in a heap on the floor of the mortuary because of a shortage of gurneys.
"The stretchers used to convey the bodies are dirty and soiled in blood and decomposed tissue," he wrote.
"To transport the bodies between the adjacent rooms, two bodies are often placed on the same gurney."