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Death at state facility now requires autopsy

From the News and Observer

Published: July 30, 2008

RALEIGH - Gov. Mike Easley signed a new law that requires all deaths in state mental hospitals to receive a formal review by a medical examiner.
Easley signed the bill, which was approved by the legislature July 18, late Monday night with several other bills he wanted to clear from his desk before going into the hospital for shoulder surgery, Easley press secretary Renee Hoffman said Tuesday.

The new law was enacted after a series of articles in The News & Observer that detailed 82 questionable patient deaths in state mental hospitals and homes for people with developmental disabilities.

Many of those patients' bodies were buried or cremated without being autopsied or examined by a pathologist.

State law already required that deaths resulting from homicide, suicide, accidents or unknown causes be reported to a medical examiner. The N&O's review of patient deaths in the state's 14 mental institutions since December 2000 showed that some recorded as "natural" and not reported were known by staff to have died of symptoms related to shoddy care.

Under the new law, all mental hospital deaths, regardless of cause, will be reported to a local medical examiner, who then assumes jurisdiction over the body. The pathologist is then required to independently determine the cause of death and submit a report to the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner in Chapel Hill.

Those written reports will be public records. Until now, the state Department of Health and Human Services has refused to identify those who died in its facilities, arguing that making the names public would violate the dead patients' privacy rights.

michael.biesecker@newsobserver.com or (919) 829-4698