The coroners who are conducting autopsies on people who are dying at home are at high risk of contracting Covid disease,”said Mohamed Farhan, Secretary of the Sri Lanka Coroners’ Association.
Coroners are required to monitor and diagnose Covid infections at home. However, coroners say that none of them receive any health assistance from any institution to ensure their safety. They should wear full protective clothing when approaching an infected or infected corpse, but coroners say coroners do not have such clothing.
Although all cases of Covid infection in the home should be monitored first, coroners say that the Ministry of Health or any other agency does not provide face masks, gloves, or protective clothing.
Depending on the area of jurisdiction, there should be 650 or 700 coroners, but at present there are only a very limited number of 350 coroners to cover all areas of the country. As a result, one coroner has to cover two or three divisions. He has to work 24 hours a day and even after traveling a distance of seven or eight hundred kilometers, a coroner is still paid a transport allowance of six rupees (06) per kilometer. This amount of money can only be spent on a bicycle. For a lengthy process from first going to the scene of the death with the police to inspecting and taking all the evidence and reporting to the court, very little money is received. With that money all the health care tools have to be obtained.
Medical professionals also say that people who work in the coroner’s service, which is an honorable service, should be provided with protective clothing and tools to protect themselves from corona because they are retired or 50 years of age or older.
Secretary of the Sri Lanka Coroners’ Association Mohamed Farhan said,
This is a respectable service. But now we are in a very dangerous situation with the Covid epidemic. We got one outfit in the beginning. But it’s not enough .The police and we are the first to go to the most dangerous place. We have made a request to the Ministry of Justice in this regard. But there is no relief for that yet. We have to travel long distances, especially in rural areas. A Monaragala coroner has to cover an area of 90 km. One person has to cover two or three divisions. In places like the Kalutara district, one person has to go for seven or eight deaths a day. The health of these people is in danger. This honorable one has to serve with a small death allowance and a combined allowance. In doing so, we have to acknowledge that with the current situation, the lives of coroners are becoming insecure.
S. Poddeniya