Geisha Kow­lessar

Health Min­is­ter Dr Fuad Khan has apol­o­gised to pathol­o­gist Dr East­lyn Mc­Don­ald-Bur­ris for say­ing she was un­qual­i­fied but has main­tained she must reg­is­ter with the Med­ical Board to reg­u­larise her sta­tus as a foren­sic pathol­o­gy spe­cial­ist.

Af­ter con­flict­ing au­top­sy re­sults of sol­dier Lance Cor­po­ral Cur­tis Mar­shall, Khan said nei­ther Dr Hu­bert Dais­ley nor Dr East­lyn Mc­Don­ald-Bur­ris– both of whom per­formed the au­top­sies–were qual­i­fied as foren­sic pathol­o­gists as far as the board was con­cerned. "As far as I am aware, the on­ly doc­tor who is a foren­sic pathol­o­gist in this coun­try, be­ing reg­is­tered with the med­ical board, is Dr (Valery) Alexan­drov," Khan had said.

The Health Min­is­ter, how­ev­er, yes­ter­day apol­o­gise to Mc­Don­ald-Bur­ris, say­ing he nev­er in­tend­ed to in­sin­u­ate she was not suit­able for the job as a foren­sic pathol­o­gist. Mc­Don­ald-Bur­ris has been work­ing at the Foren­sic Sci­ence Cen­tre, St James, since 2000. "I apol­o­gise for say­ing she is un­qual­i­fied as she is qual­i­fied as a med­ical doc­tor with an ad­di­tion­al de­gree in foren­sic med­i­cine," Khan said.

He said, how­ev­er, the onus was on her to present prop­er cre­den­tials to the board to be cer­ti­fied. "But I main­tain she (Mc­Don­ald-Bur­ris) needs to needs to reg­u­larise her spe­cial­i­ty sta­tus as a foren­sic pathol­o­gy spe­cial­ist with the Med­ical Board. For that I re­main fixed," Khan added. Asked why the board did not en­sure doc­tors reg­is­ter to avoid such con­flict Khan said the onus was on the per­son and not on the board.

Khan added he could on­ly do so much as pathol­o­gists fell un­der the Jus­tice Min­istry and not the Health Min­istry. He said he was seek­ing guid­ance from Alexan­drov for im­ple­ment­ing a spe­cial­ist reg­is­trar which would list the spe­cial­i­ties for doc­tors. Alexan­drov has al­so come to the de­fence of his col­league, say­ing Mc­Don­ald-Bur­ris has been per­form­ing au­top­sies for the past 12 years and there­fore qual­i­fied as a foren­sic pathol­o­gist.

Apart from Alexan­drov and Mc­Don­ald-Bur­ris, Dr Hughvon des Vi­gnes al­so per­forms foren­sic au­top­sies. But Alexan­drov said as a for­eign­er he made it his du­ty to present his cre­den­tials to the med­ical board to be reg­is­tered. He said ide­al­ly the Foren­sic Sci­ence Cen­tre should have at least four foren­sic pathol­o­gists. In 2012 the cen­tre con­duct­ed 907 au­top­sies of which Alexan­drov did 437.