This article was republished with permission from WTOP’s news partners at Maryland Matters. Sign up for Maryland Matters’ free email subscription today.
This content was republished with permission from WTOP’s news partners at Maryland Matters. Sign up for Maryland Matters’ free email subscription today.
The backlog of bodies waiting for autopsy at the Maryland Office of the Chief Medical Examiner has reportedly been cleared.
In a text exchange Friday afternoon, Del. Kirill Reznik (D-Montgomery) wrote that the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner claimed that the autopsy overflow had been cleared when contacted by his office.
Inquiries made to the Department of Health, the Governor’s office and the Maryland Institute for Emergency Medical Services Systems and Maryland’s regional Federal Emergency Management Agency were not immediately returned.
Reznik’s office has been closely following problems within the Department of Health, which oversees the agency.
The Office of the Chief Medical Examiner has faced scrutiny since earlier this year, when weeks-long delays in completing autopsies began to come to light. Officials have pointed to COVID-19, the state’s rising homicide rate, the overdose epidemic and staffing shortages within the office as the source of the backlog.
The autopsy overflow caused such significant problems that the state leased a portion of the Metro West parking garage in Baltimore to use as a makeshift morgue.
Former Chief Medical Examiner Dr. Victor Weedn made a request in early February to the Federal Emergency Management Agency for assistance from its Disaster Mortuary Operational Response Teams for support. He projected that the backlog would surpass 300 bodies by mid-February.
Disaster Mortuary Operational Response Teams are typically deployed after natural disasters, terrorist attacks and transportation accidents.
Soon after, Dr. Jinlene Chan, Maryland’s deputy secretary of public health services, said the federal government was sending two forensic pathologists and one expert to help.
As Friday afternoon, Maryland has not submitted an additional request for support, but Disaster Mortuary Operational Response Team personnel are still on the ground in the state.
On Friday, the Senate Budget & Taxation Committee approved budget language that will require the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner to submit a report detailing a timeline and description of all assistance received from the Federal Emergency Management Agency, including the number of autopsies performed by FEMA personnel.
The committee is also seeking a report on the state’s efforts to fill the vacant chief medical examiner position, as well as other open jobs in the office.
On. Feb. 18, Weedn resigned during an early morning meeting of the Postmortem Examiners Commission. Dr. Pamela E. Southall, a deputy medical examiner under Weedn, was appointed interim chief medical examiner in his stead.
Danielle E. Gaines contributed to this report.
