After the death of her cousin, 29 years old, a resident of Lanzarote has denounced the lack of personnel to perform autopsies on the island. "There are devastated parents who are waiting to be able to bury their son and this is regrettable," said this woman, after waiting two days for the autopsy.
According to what she explained to La Voz, her cousin woke up dead on Wednesday "suddenly" and, after his mother found the body "when she went to wake him up", 112 was notified and the protocol was activated, by which the Civil Guard, an ambulance with health personnel who determined the death, and the judicial authority came to the house to proceed with the removal of the body. However, after his transfer to the Court to perform the autopsy, since the young man "did not have any serious illness", this woman affirms that the family began to experience a "regrettable" situation.
"They told us that the autopsy was not going to be performed that same afternoon, because in Lanzarote there is no forensic assistant and one had to come from Gran Canaria, but that it would be performed on Thursday morning," she explains. However, it was not like that. "Then they told us that he would come on Friday but they didn't assure us either, because there were more autopsies ahead and that this gentleman or lady would come for only two or three hours and that's when I got angry," she adds.
"It is a disgrace that this happens on such a large island"
Finally, this Friday morning, the family has managed to have the autopsy performed. "I think because we have complained," said this relative, who nevertheless wanted to make this situation public, because she says that in the Courts themselves they told her that "in Lanzarote there has been no assistant for a long time." "I don't know if they told me that for more than a year," she specifies.
"There are forensic doctors, but the problem is that there are no assistants and they do not perform an autopsy without assistants. And it is not that the assistant is on leave, it is that there is none," says this woman, who considers that "it is contradictory" and that she also does not understand why "the autopsies cannot be done between two forensic doctors." "For parents to lose a child and spend days at home without knowing when they will be able to bury him is very sad," she adds.
For this reason, this woman asks "the corresponding administration" to "put the necessary means so that this does not happen again in Lanzarote." "Because it is a disgrace that on such a large island, because we are not talking about an island of 10,000 inhabitants, this is happening," she concludes.
