The state has hired a new chief medical examiner more than a year after the previous leader left in part because of the crush of cases stemming from the overdose epidemic and violence. The Maryland Department of Health announced Monday that Dr. Victor W. Weedn was appointed to lead the office.
DELAND Nearly three years after Volusia County s medical examiner resigned in protest over working conditions in the overcrowded and understaffed morgue, the county has chosen the site for a new facility double the size.
The Volusia County Council voted unanimously Jan. 2 to put a new morgue on a 2.7-acre site along Tiger Bay Road west of the Emergency Operations Center and authorized spending $993,000 to design the facility.
That contract was awarded to Orlando architecture firm SchenkelShultz.
Chief Medical Examiner James Fulcher, hired in 2019, said the operational problems raised before he was hired have been resolved and the new facility will enable the county to seek accreditation from the National Association of Medical Examiners.
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Tens of thousands of Covid-19 deaths are going unreported in the U.S., with far more missed in counties that strongly supported former President Trump, according to new research.
The figures suggest that political leanings have helped suppress the true scale of deaths. In cases where the deceased didn’t have a Covid-19 test, a coroner or medical examiner has the freedom to interpret symptoms.
“There’s potentially latitude to make a judgement call conditional on a set of beliefs about Covid and whether it represents a serious problem or a hoax,” said Andrew Stokes, a professor of global health at Boston University School of Public Health who performed the analysis for STAT.
No one new has applied for the position.
Carlina Charfauros, spokeswoman for the attorney general the chairman of the Commission on Post-Mortem Examinations said there haven’t been any new applicants.
There was one applicant scheduled for an interview in 2019, but he withdrew his application before the interview.
The government of Guam has used the money that would go to pay for a chief medical examiner to contract two Hawaii-based forensic pathologists and Saipan-based Dr. Philip Dauterman to do autopsies and post-mortem examinations, according to Charfauros.
Even before the pandemic, families whose loved ones’ remains had to be examined post-mortem waited for days or weeks for Dauterman to fly to Guam to do the exams. Autopsies for suspected homicide cases have to wait for the contracted Hawaii forensic pathologists fly out here.
When covid deaths aren’t counted, families pay the price
On Sundays, Bishop Bruce Davis preached love. Through his Pentecostal ministry, he organized youth parades and gave computers, bicycles and food to families in need.
During the week, Bruce practiced what he preached, caring for prisoners at a Georgia hospital. On March 27 he began coughing, and on April 1 he was hospitalized. He d tested positive for covid-19. The virus swept through his household, infecting his wife and daughter and hospitalizing their disabled son. Ten days after landing in the hospital, Bruce died.
But when Gwendolyn Davis received her husband’s death certificate, she was taken aback. The causes of death? Sepsis and renal failure. No mention of covid-19.