Family outraged after Ont. girl buried without brain

[Variol (Farseer) Elmwood]

http://www.cbc.ca/canada/story/2008/...psy-brain.html

The family of a young girl who died suddenly last month wants to know why coroners at a London, Ont., hospital removed her brain during the autopsy but didn't tell them until after the girl was buried. Sanja Pandzic, 7, was killed by an unexpected heart problem, doctors told her family. The young girl died in hospital after losing consciousness at her family home in Woodstock, Ont., on Oct. 23. "[They] said that it was a heart problem, so they're going to need to look into it more and see what's going on," Sanja's brother, Jasmin, told CBC's As It Happens Thursday. "They wanted to check more deeper into it. They didn't say anything about the brain" following her death, he said. Jasmin's mother, Dragica, said she gave the Woodstock hospital where Sanja died permission to send the body to University Hospital in London for an autopsy. The girl's body was returned and buried less than a week later in a traditional Islamic ceremony, under the assumption that she was being interred with all of her organs. Two days after the funeral, Dragica received the news that Sanja's brain had been kept at the London hospital for further testing. The Woodstock doctor called the family at home and told them "the papers said about the autopsy that they still had the brain of my sister…at the University Hospital in the autopsy department," Jasmin said, speaking for his mother throughout the interview as she cried quietly. "They didn't tell us anything before that." When he spoke to the regional supervising coroner for West London, Dr. Rick Mann, Jasmin said the doctor told him "that to do more tests on the brain will save other kids lives." Dragica, whose religious beliefs dictate that the bodies of the dead must be buried whole, said the news was shocking. "I asked 'Who give you permission to touch her brain?'…and [Mann] told me, 'We need brain for find something,'" she said. The doctor said "that he must keep that brain for more time. It's hard for me — I get one shock when my girl passed away, and other shock was when he told me a part of her body is still in hospital." Mann told CBC on Thursday that the coroner's office is entitled to keep organs without family permission, and that the investigation into Sanja's death is ongoing. He is scheduled to appear on As It Happens Friday evening to discuss the issue. No papers were ever signed that would give doctors permission to keep Sanja's organs, Jasmin said. His family now wonders if there are other parts the girl might be missing. "If they took the brain, how do we now not know they didn't keep the heart or a kidney or something?" Lawyers have told the family they must gather paperwork to prove that the London hospital still has Sanja's brain in order to get it back. Meanwhile, the funeral home that buried the little girl has offered to pick up her brain from the hospital and bury it a few feet above the casket so as not to disturb the grave. "They [doctors] I think suggested to cremate it and my mom said no, because she didn't let her daughter's body, whole body, get cremated, so why should she let them cremate the brain," Jasmin said.

I personally don't care what parts I'm buried with. I know that I will be made whole "on that day."
The family should have been informed though.
Who would want bury their child's brain (or any of their chil's body parts) after they have buried their child.
..no matter what your religious beliefs are.

[Stratos]

Yeah, the family should have been notified.

[Yorick]

Absolutely the family should have been notified. That's quite a violation. Awful.

[Dron_Cah]

While I understand the family's distress, based upon their religious beliefs, I can't blame the coroner's office. Having worked in the field for a short time, I know that the brain is almost always removed during an autopsy, and is not returned to the cranium. Perhaps there should be a new standard put in place to respect the family's religious beliefs on this issue.
Whatever the case, the coroner's office is fully in their rights in keeping the brain for further testing. Or at least they would be in the U.S. (I don't know the differences in Canada's laws)

[Ilander]

Shame...even though, I wouldn't really mind if I was given notification, as it's not really against any of my beliefs (I would have accepted the cremation, if, with my beliefs, I was in her situation).

Still, though, it's pretty awful that they will have to exhume the body and rebury the girl.

[Stratos]

Originally Posted by Dron_Cah While I understand the family's distress, based upon their religious beliefs, I can't blame the coroner's office. Having worked in the field for a short time, I know that the brain is almost always removed during an autopsy, and is not returned to the cranium. Perhaps there should be a new standard put in place to respect the family's religious beliefs on this issue. Whatever the case, the coroner's office is fully in their rights in keeping the brain for further testing. Or at least they would be in the U.S. (I don't know the differences in Canada's laws)

It's a tricky issue. The problem of making exceptions for religious beliefs is that non-religious people, or people whose religion says nothing on the issue, would have no basis for a brain claim.

[Variol (Farseer) Elmwood]

I think to hold the body until all the parts can be re-united, is the right thing to do.

You don't go handing people their child's brain, after they've been buried. That's like something out of a horror film.

[Dron_Cah]

Well, I think the problem is, some brains are kept for a rather long time after death. To wait that long to bury a person would not only be impractical, but also against their religion (I think). That is usually in the case of legal action being taken, so they may be alright in this circumstance, but the problem would still occur in other situations...

[Gangrell]

I'll have to plead ignorance to this Dron Cah, why can't the brain be put back in afterwards?

My religious beliefs don't really play into the whole 'what you're buried with' scenario. More along the lines of, 'this is my child, I'd like them to be whole' scenario.

[Dron_Cah]

From my understanding, Gangrell, the brain is kept for some time afterwards to verify information later on, particularly in the case of a trial. If a case goes to trial, both the prosecution and defense would want their experts to have access to both the initial autopsy and toxicology results, and may also require tissue samples to test themselves.
Mistakes can happen in the first run of things, as well, so those tissues make possible a second test.
There may be other reasons, but those are the ones I'm aware of.