Is it right for hospital to demand inquest?
Dear Mirror Lawyer, I live with my uncle, and by our customary practices, I am supposed to inherit him.
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My uncle collapsed at home and we rushed him to the hospital in a taxicab. On arrival at the hospital, the medical staff on duty came to examine him and informed us that we had brought him dead.
They said they were not going to release the body to the family unless the police carried out a Coroner’s investigation to confirm that we did not kill him before rushing him to the hospital.
The fact was that at the time we arrived with the taxicab at the hospital, my uncle was breathing hard and moving his body. So, we do not understand this accusation of killing him before rushing him to the hospital and the purpose of the investigation. Kindly advise us, the sorrowful and worried souls.
Sarah Mensah, Teshie, Accra.
Dear Sarah, Where death occurs outside a health facility or within 24 hours on arrival at a health facility in circumstances which will make it difficult or impossible for a health official to certify the cause of death, then an investigation would have to be undertaken by a public official to eliminate any foul play and ascertain the proper cause of death.
The public official charged with that responsibility is called a Coroner, and the investigation is known as an Inquest. Thus, an inquest is a judicial inquiry held to determine the cause of a person's death.
Members of the public are only likely to come into contact with the Coroner and his office in traumatic or sad circumstances where usually a relative has died suddenly and unexpectedly.
Having to deal with bereavement is hard enough, but also having to cope with the involvement of the Coroner, his officers and possibly an Inquest can also be a mystifying and sometimes worrying experience.
The law that regulates the activities of Coroners in Ghana is the Coroners Act of 1960, Act 18. Section 2 provides that where a dead body is found or where a person has died a violent or any other unnatural death or a death of which the cause is unknown, a person finding the body or becoming aware of the death shall forthwith give notice of the death to the officer in charge at the nearest police station.
Further, the person in charge of a prison, lock-up, psychiatric hospital or public institution other than a hospital shall forthwith give notice to the coroner for the district of the death of a person detained in that place.
The person in charge of a hospital in which a person has died an unnatural death shall forthwith give notice of the death to the district coroner.
An inquest is usually conducted by a Magistrate or a Judge and may or may not require an autopsy carried out by a Coroner. Generally, inquests are only conducted when deaths are sudden or unexplained.
An inquest may be called at the behest of a Coroner, Judge, Prosecutor or, in some jurisdictions, upon a formal request from the family of the deceased.
The Coroner has jurisdiction to inquire into violent or unnatural deaths, sudden deaths when the cause is unknown and deaths in prison. As long as the body is within his area, the Coroner has jurisdiction to hold an Inquest into such a death.
The Coroner has the power to order the exhumation of the body of a person buried within his jurisdiction. In the case of a sudden death from an unknown cause, the Coroner may order a post-routine examination of the body. If this shows that death was from natural causes, the Coroner is not compelled to hold an Inquest.
The procedure during an inquest is for the Coroner to hold an inquiry to examine witnesses on oath who can give any relevant evidence or information to establish who the deceased was and how, when and where the deceased came by their death.
The law specifically precludes the Coroner from expressing an opinion on any other matter. Thus, it is a special type of court hearing. The Coroner asks experts and witnesses to give evidence in court about what happened.
An inquest is not a trial. It’s about finding out what happened and how to stop other people dying similarly. It’s not about blaming anyone for what happened. It isn’t as formal as a criminal court hearing and there isn’t a jury.
The law says a person who, without reasonable cause, the burden of proving which lies on that person, fails to give such a notice commits an offence and is liable on summary conviction to a fine not exceeding two hundred penalty units or to a term of imprisonment not exceeding six months or both the fine and the imprisonment.
In the Supreme Court case of Republic v District Court Grade 1, Korle Gonno, ex parte Ampomah [1992-93] 1 GBR 196 SC, the Court held that the coroner was empowered under section 5(1) of Act 18 to hold an inquiry touching on the death of a person only where had "reasonable cause" to suspect any of the statutory conditions laid down in that section.
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And, even in these circumstances, except where the person who died was detained or in prison or a lock-up, the coroner might, under section 5(2) of Act 18, dispense with the holding of an inquest if the post-mortem or autopsy reports show the cause of death.
In the instant case, the evidence was not only overwhelming that the deceased was a known diabetes or hypertensive patient but also that the police docket made available to the coroner contained two post-mortem reports which clearly showed that the cause of death was, as indicated in the first of the post-mortem reports (exhibit A), i.e. cerebrovascular accident, not poisoning.
Hence, it could not be said that the deceased had died a violent or unnatural death, and there was clearly no justification for holding that the cause of death was unknown. In the circumstances, the coroner had no reasonable cause to suspect any of the conditions laid down under section 5(1) of the Act to make the holding of an inquest necessary.
It is, therefore, not mandatory to hold an inquest on the death of a person unless the death is sudden or unnatural. I would advise you to allow the legal process of investigating the sudden death of your uncle to go ahead for the requirement of the law to be fulfilled.
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After that, the body would be released to the family for the funeral. As for the suspicion of foul play, once you know you are innocent, you have nothing to fear from the investigation.