SANTA CRUZ DE TENERIFE, July 16. (EUROPE PRESS) –
The two institutes of Legal Medicine and Forensic Sciences of the Canary Islands, located one in Tenerife and the other in Gran Canaria, carried out 1,715 autopsies last year, most of them within 24 hours of death.
This follows from the data provided by their corresponding addresses and that the Minister of Public Administrations, Justice and Security, Julio Pérez, as head of both institutes, has recently made public.
In the specific case of the province of Santa Cruz de Tenerife, 766 autopsies were carried out, of which 694 were carried out in Tenerife, 57 in La Palma, 12 in La Gomera and 3 in El Hierro. In addition, in 2022, until July 11, 409 autopsies had been carried out: 377 in Tenerife, 23 in La Palma, 6 in La Gomera and 3 in El Hierro.
In the province of Las Palmas, last year 949 necropsies were carried out, corresponding to 761 in Gran Canaria, 95 in Lanzarote and 93 in Fuerteventura. In the time elapsed until July 11, 2022, a total of 502 had been practiced: 387 in Gran Canaria, 62 in Lanzarote and 53 in Fuerteventura.
Julio Pérez explained that on all the islands there are forensic doctors available to the judicial bodies, so the service is covered at all times. Likewise, it has indicated that the examination of the deceased requires the participation of an autopsy assistant, who travels, as soon as possible -usually the day after his presence is requested-, from the IMLCF headquarters in Tenerife or from the IMLCF in Gran Canaria, depending on the island.
As established in the IV Single Collective Agreement for the workforce of the General State Administration, approved in 2019, to perform the work of autopsy assistant you must be in possession of the Higher Level Vocational Training title of Higher Technician Assistant in Pathological Anatomy and Cytology.
The counselor wanted to recall that, both in 2021 and 2022, in the province of Las Palmas two reinforcement autopsy assistants have been hired, with the aim that all contingencies are covered.
In this sense, he has highlighted that in the province of Santa Cruz de Tenerife there are no delays in the examination of the deceased and that in the province of Las Palmas specific problems may have arisen circumstantially on some occasion, delaying one or two more days, either because of the number of autopsies at the Gran Canaria headquarters or due to transportation problems, especially during vacation periods.
Lastly, he commented that the delivery of the body to the family does not take place until authorized by the investigating judge of the procedure in question and that, for various reasons -lack of identification, doubts about the causes or circumstances of death, the practice of police or court proceedings – may be delayed.
