Media Releases
OSH Concerned at State of Country's Mortuaries
Thursday 8 January 1998
New Zealand’s pathologists and medical students could contract life-threatening diseases while performing autopsies through inadequate health and safety systems, prompting the Occupational Safety and Health Service of the Department of Labour (OSH) to mount a health and safety audit of the country’s mortuaries.
A preliminary survey carried out by OSH suggests that some of the country’s autopsy facilities may not meet international health and safety standards. Concerned too by complaints from pathologists, OSH is to establish a working party to look at the performing of high risk autopsies.
Autopsies considered ‘high-risk’ include those carried out on victims thought to have died from Hepatitis B, Hepatitis C, Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) and Creutzfeldt-Jacob Disease (CJD).
"We have already approached one mortuary after receiving complaints about working conditions and that facility has since ceased carrying out autopsies considered high-risk," OSH spokesperson Lisa-Marie Richan said.
"OSH has made recommendations calling for adequate ventilation, the implementation of contamination control procedures, the use of personal protective equipment and other employee protection procedures such as ongoing health monitoring," Ms Richan said.
"Acquiring a disease while carrying out an autopsy would, under the Health and Safety in Employment Act, be considered ‘serious harm’. If the employer had not taken all practicable steps to prevent the contraction of the disease, this would be a breach of the law."
"Our immediate task is to assess New Zealand’s mortuaries and work with pathologists and other parties to address the best manner of controlling the risks posed by high-risk autopsies," said Ms Richan
