Legal Medicine transfers corpses from Cali to Buga and Palmira for maintenance of cold rooms

The National Institute of Legal Medicine referred this Tuesday to the problem that they are presenting with the refrigeration rooms where the corpses are kept at its headquarters in Cali and explained that, because they are not working, it has been forced to transfer some bodies to its headquarters in Buga and Palmira.

The situation has generated discomfort among some relatives of deceased people, who have declared themselves surprised because the remains of their loved ones have ended up in places other than the capital of the Valley.

Among them is the case of a minor, 13 years old, who had been missing since March 26. Regarding this case, a cultural manager close to the victim’s grandmother said that the body of the adolescent appeared in Legal Medicine, but not in Cali as they believed, but in Buga.

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The minor was the granddaughter of a mayor of Commune 11 and, according to the testimony, the body was transferred because the refrigeration rooms have not been working for more than a month and a half.

In this regard, the director of Legal Medicine of the Southwest region, which covers Valle del Cauca and Nariño, Jairo Silva, told El País that “Cali handles a large volume of cases and has two cold rooms that are subject to strict maintenance. and careful, but there are times when general maintenance needs to be done. This year there was a need to make a general intervention, change the floors, the structure, the refrigeration system and the condensers”.

And he added that “for two months, the contingency plan to address the lack of refrigerators and preserve the corpses is to transport one or two bodies daily to nearby cities, such as Buga and Palmira. According to doctor Silva, they are bodies in a condition of no identified, but “once they are identified they are brought to deliver to the families.”

However, the affected people say that moving to another municipality to claim the bodies of their loved ones incurs additional expenses. In addition, some complain about the time it takes to identify the bodies.

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On the latter, the spokesman for Legal Medicine, assured that “the document established by law to identify a corpse is the ten-print card, which is delivered by the Registry. Even if the deceased person has the identity card, this is not a document recognized by law to identify the body.”

It should also be borne in mind that the state of the corpse can influence the time it takes for identification. According to Silva, “there are some cases in which they try to hide the true identity of the person or the body is in decomposition and, therefore, the process takes longer.”

After two months of performing general maintenance on the two cold rooms at the National Institute of Legal Medicine in Cali, it is expected that the refrigerators will be available again in May.

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