Medical Examiner’s Office move may really happen

Ennumerate the core functions of government. Not many lists will include a medical examiner.Few people realize how commonplace autopsies have become in the functioning of government. The Sheriff’s Office and local police forces rely heavily on the medical examiner for evidence collection. The district attorney relies on their findings for prosecution, and the Health Department, in which this county position is based, utilizes the results for analysis and detection of public health risks.Television dramas frequently depict the role of coroner’s offices in crime investigations, yet the law requires autopsies even for deaths suspected as accidents. As a result, there is a constant flow of bodies that pass through the county morgue for which the current facilities at Vassar Brothers Hospital are woefully inadequate. The capacity for storing bodies is inadequate particularly outside of normal business hours including weekends. The county is severely underprepared at present if a mid-scale disaster or health epidemic were to occur.The facilities for storing tissue samples and other evidence used in investigations are also inadequate. In legalese this could affect chain of custody thereby allowing otherwise guilty offenders to go free.The medical examiner currently operates out of a small, cramped hallway office with freezer space for six bodies, a tight examination room and a tiny display room wherein family members can identify loved one’s remains.Because the morgue is located down the hall from the hospital kitchen where food is prepared, there are further health risks caused from possible flies hatching from decayed bodies brought into the hospital, a risk not problematic from in-hospital-deaths because there is little time for decay to set in from the time of death to transport to the morgue.For the past decade the hospital has repeatedly asked the county to move its Medical Examiner’s Office elsewhere. Progress on this front has been slow particularly due to the sluggish economy.In the fall of 2010, the Legislature was presented with a bond to purchase a building the county currently rents and construct an addition to house a new Medical Examiner’s Office. Visits were made to the existing and proposed ME offices, and alternative sites considered, but the economy and state of the county finances delayed legislative ratification of the plan.This week, following positive reports on the county’s financial health, including sales tax revenues up by 8 percent (we budgeted only about 4 percent), the Legislature now appears ready to move forward with a $4.3 million bond for the acquisition of 170 Washington St., Poughkeepsie, to construct a medical examiner’s office.The true beneficiary of the medical examiner’s work is not the dead, but the living. Solving a crime or finding closure in comprehending a loved one’s cause of death is only half of it. Many times an autopsy uncovers a defect or disease that can lead offspring to make important health decisions or become alerted to having the same problem. Often times as a result of the medical examiner lives can be saved or extended. Michael Kelsey represents Amenia, Washington, Stanford, Pleasant Valley and Millbrook in the County Legislature. Write him at KelseyESQ@yahoo.com.