STORY: "Death and Dysfunction: How New Jersey fails the dead, betrays the living and is a national disgrace, by Stephen Stirling and S.P. Sullivan, published on December 14, 2017. which explains why you might not want to die in New Jersey. (A superb investigation: HL);
GIST: "You’re dead in New Jersey. You’re a
teenager hit by a train and the circumstances are murky. You’re an infant who
died suddenly in the middle of the night. You’re a middle-aged woman found
covered in stab wounds on your bedroom floor. This is a state of 9 million people
with a $35 billion annual budget. Surely, someone will get to the
bottom of it. But what if the cops at the scene
moved key evidence in their haste? What if the pathologist who sliced you open
had a troubled past? What if you were buried before they had all the facts? What if New Jersey’s entire system
for investigating deaths was a national disgrace? An 18-month NJ Advance Media
investigation for NJ.com found serious failures at nearly every level of New
Jersey’s patchwork system of medical examiner offices, the obscure agencies
charged with one of the most fundamental tasks: figuring out how somebody died
and why. The probe revealed families left to
grieve without answers or closure, innocent people sent to jail and murders
still unsolved. Ask pathologists across the country
and they’ll tell you about New Jersey. They’ll tell you it’s so bad that slowly
decomposing bodies sometimes clog storage rooms of morgues by the dozens,
stacked two to a gurney, awaiting examination or burial for months. Ask New Jersey’s past two top medical
examiners and they’ll tell you they resigned in protest over a lack of money
and power to fix things. Governors and lawmakers for nearly four decades have
largely ignored the system’s shortcomings and the
tragic consequences, and failed to demand answers. Ask funeral directors and they’ll
tell you about body parts gone missing and mangled corpses. Data shows families
wait an average of four months to learn from the state’s busiest offices how
their loved ones died. That’s twice the national standard. And that’s if the
dead get examined at all. Experts estimate an effective system
should be run in New Jersey for about $31.5 million a year. That's $3.50 per
resident, or about the cost of a gallon of milk per person. Right now,
taxpayers pony up about $26 million for a system marred by neglect and
dysfunction. The newest state medical examiner,
Andrew Falzon, has won praise for trying to right the ship since he was
confirmed to the post last year. The state has hired more pathologists and
support staff, improved turnaround times for autopsies and brought in an
outside monitor to study the system and recommend changes. Yet past studies and recommendations
still collect dust, as do the many reform bills that have been introduced in
the state Legislature since 2003, all of them going nowhere. Why? Because you’re dead in New
Jersey, and the dead don’t vote." Read on at the link below: (How can you resist? HL);
The entire story can be found at the link below:
http://death.nj.com/2/
PUBLISHER'S NOTE: I am monitoring this case/issue. Keep your eye on the
Charles Smith Blog for reports on developments. The Toronto Star, my
previous employer for more than twenty incredible years, has put
considerable effort into exposing the harm caused by Dr. Charles Smith
and his protectors - and into pushing for reform of Ontario's forensic
pediatric pathology system. The Star has a "topic" section which focuses
on recent stories related to Dr. Charles Smith. It can be found at: http://www.thestar.com/topic/c
