Local Government Minister Desmond McKenzie on Thursday hailed the completion of the island’s first dedicated forensic pathology autopsy suite in his Kingston Western constituency, boasting that it was “done on time and in budget” with “no extortion money paid”.

“I can say, without fear of contradiction, when we had the ground-breaking I gave a commitment to the minister and to the audience that the only don on the project is the contractor because there would be no one collecting an envelope without working for it,” McKenzie told the audience attending the opening of the suite located at 149 Orange Street in downtown Kingston — a stone’s throw from Kingston Public Hospital.

“The contract was done on time and in budget, and this is something that we must be proud of because people feel that when work of this magnitude comes into communities such as this you have to pay somebody in order for the work to be undertaken. There were no security payments that were made, there was no extortion money that was paid, anybody who worked got a job and worked and earned from this construction,” McKenzie said assuredly.

Noting that the island’s sole public morgue had been destroyed by fire in 1970, McKenzie said the absence of any such facility had led to an undesirable situation which the suite will correct.

“One of the things that occurred because we had no public morgue, was a mushrooming of undertakers right across the country, especially here in the Corporate Area. You would be surprised to know that in West Kingston alone the last count we did gave us 45 funeral homes, and that represents the greater portion that exists in the Corporate Area,” McKenzie said.

He said the facility will enable fair treatment for individuals who otherwise might have to endure long waits for autopsies to be done on their loved ones because they have no “contacts”.

“This is a commitment the Government made since 2007 when I was mayor. I advocated strongly to the then Prime Minister Bruce Golding. I am glad it is situated in West Kingston,” he said.

Dr Judith Mowatt, director of the Institute of Forensic Science and Legal Medicine, endorsed McKenzie’s comments, saying that on the many visits she made to the construction site there were no complaints [of extortion or intimidation].

The absence of an autopsy suite has caused major angst over the years, chief among them the expense of outsourcing the services to privately operated funeral homes which, between 2017 and 2021, cost the Government $482 million for the storage of bodies.

For example, a 2011 contract to Madden’s Funeral Home for the provision of funeral home/morgue services, specifically for the storage of bodies, saw the Government then paying a proposed rate of $875 per body, per day. That figure has increased since then.