Department of Health
The Department of Health is the Government's health adviser and agency to execute healthcare policies and statutory functions. It safeguards the health of the community through promotive, preventive, curative and rehabilitative services.
Secretary for Food & Health Dr York Chow has launched an inquiry into autopsy procedures after a mix-up at Fu Shan Public Mortuary.
An autopsy was mistakenly conducted on the body of a 77-year-old woman earlier this week.
The body was delivered to the mortuary on October 17 and the family was granted an autopsy exemption by the Coroner's Court. However, her information was mistakenly put in the file for a man's body which needed an autopsy, and the procedure was wrongly conducted on the woman.
Dr Chow said proper procedures were not followed by the mortuary staff and apologised to the affected family. He ordered the Department of Health to review autopsy procedures and explain the incident to the family.
"We apologise to the family concerned and will make every effort to avoid the recurrence of incidents of this kind," he said.
The department's Assistant Director (Special Health Services) Dr Heston Kwong said there was a failure to comply with critical steps in staff guidelines at the mortuary, and measures have been taken to prevent a similar incident.
He said Hong Kong's three public mortuaries have been told to assign a doctor-in-charge to oversee autopsy procedures.
A report will be presented to the family within a week.
