Twenty months after the controversial death of Pakistan coach Bob Woolmer in Jamaica, concerns have again been raised over the severe heavy workload of forensic pathologists in the country. At least one pathologist has claimed to have performed more than 1,000 examinations since January.

This was one of the main points of discussion during the third and final day of the 17th annual Research Conference and Workshop on Forensic Medicine, called 'Birth, Life, Death ...', at the University of the West Indies (UWI), Mona, on Friday.

Consultant forensic pathologist Dr Murari P. Sarangi, who is the sole pathologist in western Jamaica, told Friday's workshop during a question-and-answer session that he had conducted 1,070 forensic examinations so far, among them "on-the-spot autopsies over very advanced decomposed dead bodies".

Four forensic pathologists

Currently, there are only four forensic pathologists practising in Jamaica, one fewer than last year. Three are attached to the Ministry of National Security, working mainly in Kingston, St Andrew and St Catherine, while doing referral cases across the island.

In 2007, the human-rights lobby, Jamaicans For Justice, revealed that it was commonplace for one pathologist to conduct up to 11 post-mortems per day at the Government Forensic Pathology Facility at the Spanish Town Hospital in St Catherine.

Professor Carlos Escoffery, head of the Department of Pathology at UWI, said more than 3,450 autopsies were conducted in Jamaica last year. Of that number, 3,135 were conducted by government pathologists.

Jamaica's high murder rate - homicides in 2007 were 1,574, the second most bloody year in the island's history - and its numerous road-crash fatalities place tremendous burden on medical and pathology facilities.

The National Association of Medical Examiners in the United States recommends 250 cases a year per pathologist.

The Medical Association of Jamaica, however, recommends that the country have 12-15 pathologists, with a suggested caseload of three per week.

Escoffery told the conference that there was a challenge in recruiting additional pathologists to Jamaica as specialists were "a scarce commodity".

Even in larger, more developed countries such as Canada and the United Kingdom, forensic pathologists are in short supply, Escoffery added.

Problems

"So if we are going to wait on recruitment to solve our problems we might be in trouble," he said.

The UWI department chief believes focus must be placed on training pathologists locally.

This, he said, would take a significant amount of planning and corporate input but would benefit the country in the long term.

athaliah.reynolds@gleanerjm.com