CALLS have been made for a review over the "unnecessary" dissection of dead bodies in Scotland as experts revealed thousands of surgical autopsies are needlessly carried out every year.
Official data obtained by The Herald shows a wide disparity across Scotland over the use of non-invasive external examinations.
Experts and campaigners say the figures show that thous- ands bodies have been unnecessarily dissected in autopsy examinations when an external examination was all that was needed.
Professor Derrick Pounder, the head of the Centre for Forensic and Legal Medicine at the University of Dundee, is among those who are seeking changes saying that apart from “the issues of ethics and human rights” and the potential for delays in funerals, it puts a greater burden on the budgets and time of coroner services.
The data reveals that the use of the non-invasive “view and grant” external examinations of sudden unexplained deaths between 2006 and 2010 varies depending on where you live.
In Glasgow, 99% of around 10,000 cases dealt with in the four years used invasive surgical autopsies. However, in Dundee more than one in three cases avoid invasive surgical post-mortems, in Lothian it is one in four and in Aberdeen it is nearly one in five.
Pathologists who believe that more external examinations should be carried out instead of a surgical autopsies, have also warned there is a lack of a formal process of consultation meaning that many families are often not even given the option but to have their loved ones dissected – even when it is unnecessary.
Mr Pounder, who established a revolutionary programme for Tayside in 1988 in conjunction with the procurators-fiscal which dramatically cut the number of surgical autopsies in Dundee, is critical of the Scottish procedure which he says allows for unnecessary dis-section of bodies and believes their model should be adopted by the rest of the UK.
The Scottish Council of Jewish Communities has joined Muslim groups in calling for change, criticising what it describes as a “postcode lottery” over the invasive detailed autopsies.
The Dundee initiative found that many non-surgical external examinations could commonly be used in a wider range of accidental deaths and suicides, where previously surgical autopsies were carried out.
The scheme gives the pathologist discretion in certain cases to perform either an external examination or a dissection in order to complete the death certificate.
Mr Pounder said: “Many (surgical autopsies) are unnecessary from the point of view of the purpose of the medical investigation.
“They provide information that from a medical view might be interesting but it is not relevant to the purpose of finding out how they died.
He said relatives of the deceased should be “systematically asked” if they agree to an autopsy.
The Scottish Council of Jewish Communities wants the Scottish Government to recognise that non-invasive post-mortem examination techniques should be encouraged when finalising the Certificate of Death Bill being considered by the Scottish Parliament.
NHS Great Glasgow and Clyde would only say, in a prepared statement: “All sudden un-expected deaths, whether in hospital or in the community, are reported to the procurator-fiscal and it is the fiscal who determines whether a surgical autopsy is carried out.”
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