Medical examiner’s office hires staff to cope with growth, opioid crisis
The province is hiring two more medical examiners as it copes with a growing population and a worsening opioid crisis. The announcement came Wednesday as Statistics Canada released census data showing the province’s population grew by 11.6 per cent from 2011 to 2016, the highest growth rate in the country. That means more deaths to investigate and the short-staffed medical examiner’s office has been struggling to keep up.
“The increase in the population obviously comes with an increase in the overall number of deaths,” said chief medical examiner Dr. Elizabeth Brooks-Lim.
In 2014, one per cent of the office’s cases took longer than nine months. In 2015, that number rose to 1.75 per cent. Adding to the workload was a Supreme Court ruling in July that set caps of 18 months for criminal cases before the provincial courts and 30 months for superior courts from the time charges are laid. Cases can be stayed if the cap is exceeded, so medical examiners have to prioritize those cases.
The Wednesday announcement was made at the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner. When the hiring is completed, the province will have five medical examiners in Calgary and five in Edmonton.
Renovations at the office of the medical examiner have also wrapped up. The $20.6-million, multi-year project included construction of a larger toxicology laboratory. The lab will allow the government to identify and track the lethal drugs that have been wreaking havoc in the province.
“You’re looking for amounts of drugs that you can’t see,” said lab chief toxicologist Graham Jones.