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The high number of fatalities during the fifth wave of the epidemic had persistently put enormous strain on public mortuaries. The deceased bodies were thus left in the accident and emergency department (A&E) of public hospitals and could not be conveyed to the public mortuaries promptly. Starting from early March, Operations Wing of the Force had put in place a coordinated approach to form a Designated Corpse Handling Team (Team) consisting officers from different Districts and Divisions. The Team was responsible for relocating deceased bodies to the Fu Shan Temporary Mortuary in Sha Tin (FSTM) from A&E of public hospitals to alleviate the maxed out capacity of the hospitals.
Serving with empathy, officers wasted no time in informing the next-of-kin of the deceased patients of the latest arrangement on body identification. With the concerted efforts of all Districts and Divisions, the Team had relocated over 2 000 deceased bodies from hospitals to the FSTM from March 5 to March 21.
With a view to expediting the process of body identification and utilising the manpower resource, Operations Wing discussed with the relevant department on simplifying the procedure and agreed to carry out the handover of the deceased body to mortuary and body identification by family members on the same day at the FSTM. Team members would explain the latest procedure of body identification to the family members of deceased patients. Once the date of body identification was confirmed, the Team would inform the family members immediately and confirm their availability. Team members would also assist forensic pathologists to compile documents and send them to the FSTM beforehand to expedite the process. As such, the duration of each body identification had been reduced from one hour in the past to ten minutes, with 200 cases being handled every day.
Upholding professionalism and serving with empathy during the discharge of duty, the Force had succeeded in expediting the process of handling deceased bodies at the public mortuaries. This would not have been successful without the support of Miscellaneous Enquiries Sub-unit, Patrol Sub-unit, Administration Support Sub-unit, Operations Support Sub-unit, Centralised Property Office, Special Duty Squard, Police Community Relations Office and Crime Wing.
