JavaScript is disabled in your web browser or browser is too old to support JavaScript. Today almost all web pages contain JavaScript, a scripting programming language that runs on visitor's web browser. It makes web pages functional for specific purposes and if disabled for some reason, the content or the functionality of the web page can be limited or unavailable.

Monday, August 25, 2025

Burkie’s relatives back track on autopsy request

by

Derek Achong
1803 days ago
20200916

Derek Achong

Rel­a­tives of Sea Lots busi­ness­man Cedric “Burkie” Burke have de­cid­ed to for­go hav­ing an au­top­sy done on his body.

Guardian Me­dia un­der­stands that they made the de­ci­sion af­ter util­is­ing the Min­istry of Health’s pro­ce­dure for rel­a­tives to have a fi­nal view­ing of their loved ones, who passed away af­ter con­tract­ing the COVID-19 virus.

Guardian Me­dia was told that the griev­ing rel­a­tives did not want to tar­nish their mem­o­ries of their beloved pa­tri­arch by seek­ing to have his body med­ical­ly ex­am­ined by a pri­vate pathol­o­gist.

They were, how­ev­er, great­ful that the min­istry was will­ing to fa­cil­i­tate their re­quest, sources said.

Sources said that at­tor­neys Richard Clarke-Wills, Lemuel Mur­phy and Chelsea John, who are rep­re­sent­ing the fam­i­ly, would be con­sid­er­ing the is­sue fur­ther to de­ter­mine if any of le­gal ac­tion is war­rant­ed.

Ac­cord­ing to re­ports, Burke went to the Port-of-Spain Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal on Sep­tem­ber 9 and com­plained of feel­ing un­well.

The fol­low­ing day, he was trans­ferred to trans­ferred to the Ari­ma Hos­pi­tal, which is one of the fa­cil­i­ties de­signed for treat­ment of COVID-19 pa­tients.

He was then trans­ferred to the Cou­va Med­ical and Mul­ti-train­ing Fa­cil­i­ty, where he spent a night be­fore pass­ing away the fol­low­ing af­ter­noon.

In a pre-ac­tion pro­to­col let­ter is­sued on Sat­ur­day, the fam­i­ly’s at­tor­neys, claimed that their clients were not sat­is­fied with the cause of death sug­gest­ed by health of­fi­cials.

They claimed that ear­li­er that day he spoke to sev­er­al per­sons in­clud­ing Clarke-Wills and claimed that he was ad­min­is­tered a sub­stance that made him feel “numb and un­easy”.

They re­quest­ed that his med­ical records be dis­closed and that his body be pre­served in the event that they re­quired an in­de­pen­dent au­top­sy.

The fol­low­ing day, the min­istry agreed to the re­quest and be­gan pro­vid­ing the doc­u­ments, which were to be con­sid­ered by the fam­i­ly’s in­de­pen­dent med­ical ex­pert be­fore they de­cide on whether an au­top­sy is re­quired or not.

Un­der the Health Min­istry’s COVID-19 poli­cies and guide­lines au­top­sies are not per­formed on de­ceased pa­tients, who un­der­go manda­to­ry cre­ma­tion.

The min­istry’s pol­i­cy al­so pro­vides a method for rel­a­tives to have a fi­nal view­ing but un­der strict con­di­tions in­clud­ing no phys­i­cal con­tact and three foot phys­i­cal dis­tanc­ing.

Rel­a­tives are per­mit­ted to use elec­tron­ic me­dia to stream im­ages to the be­reaved for not more than a minute.


Related articles

Sponsored

Weather

PORT OF SPAIN WEATHER

Sponsored