Government is making good progress in its investigation into complaints of illicit activities involving some funeral homes and some government workers, says Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of National Security, Major Richard Reese.

Police personnel have been included among the government workers implicated in the reports that point to the alleged collection of large sums of money to expedite post-mortem reports and autopsies.

Reese described the operation as a "syndicated" one and said the illicit activities have been under way for decades.

The permanent secretary made the disclosure earlier this week in response to a recent complaint from a Jamaican woman living in the United States that, because of the delay in getting an early date for her husband's autopsy, a worker at a funeral home told her to approach a certain government worker. She said she offered the government worker $10,000 to have the autopsy done at an early date, but the government worker insisted that she should pay $23,000. She said she paid the money because she was losing US$500 weekly from her job.

Complaints

"We have received complaints of persons charging to expedite autopsies and post-mortem reports," Reese told The Gleaner.

He said that, since he took office at the ministry in December of last year, he had put plans in place to expedite post-mortems. The plans include putting in place a database for the scheduling of autopsies and increasing the number of days on which autopsies are performed. He said two pathologists were currently on duty because the third was on leave. By November, he added, there would be a fourth pathologist working with government and he would be seeking to recruit a fifth.

Reese said he met with funeral home operators and got them to make their facilities available for post-mortems.

"If you don't have the facilities to do autopsies, then the numbers would be limited," he added.

The permanent secretary said there have already been significant improvements because the waiting period for post-mortems has now moved from four weeks to two weeks and the ministry has been moving to reduce that waiting period.

Reese said because of the measures being put in place, the freight stock of bodies at the morgues had reduced by 50 per cent. He said too that police killings were given priority because there was a desire to prevent the public from having the impression that those post-mortems were being intentionally delayed.

barbara.gayle@gleanerjm.com