While the Government's plan to construct a new state-of-the-art public morgue has received the nod of approval from civil society, there are lingering concerns about the design that is now on the table.

"It has only one dissecting room, but five booths to sell food," a member of the medical profession told The Gleaner.

"The single dissecting room will institutionalise the current situation where only one post-mortem can be done at a time," the doctor said.

Concern about space

Some of the doctor's concerns are shared by Dr Marjorie Vassell who has observed several post-mortems over the past four years.

"There is concern about space and how the building is being organised," Vassell said.

"If they make the changes, this building would be adequate for a while but, in terms of long-term planning, I'm not sure this is adequate for the next 15 to 20 years. There is no space for expansion," added Vassell.

Dr Fay Whitbourne, who represented the Medical Association of Jamaica at a January meeting called by the health ministry to examine the design, also believes the short-comings can be addressed.

"It did not appear to have facilities to do X-ray and that was one of the concerns raised during the (Bob) Woolmer case," Whitbourne said.

Complete service facility

She also argued that in its current design, the new morgue does not have space for technicians to do histology - an examination of the composition and structure of plant and animal tissues in relation to their specialised functions.

This is now being done at the government labs and Whitbourne is suggesting that the new morgue should have this capability if it is to be a complete service facility.

The Ministry of National Security, which is in charge of constructing the new morgue, has said it consulted with the Ministry of Health before signing off on the design.

Interested parties including human-rights groups were invited to view the proposed design and discuss possible changes.

It should be known, whenever the contract for the construction of the morgue is signed, if the changes suggested by the groups were taken on-board.

- A.H.