The mobile unit will improve response times in the delivery of bodies that arrive at Legal Medicine and prevent decomposing corpses from being transferred to Bucaramanga.
The drama that Barranqueño families often experienced, who had to face the death of relatives and add to that long and painful days of waiting for the mortal remains of their loved ones to be delivered, ended thanks to the start-up of a specialized mobile unit , which the District received from the Regional Section of Forensic Medicine.
“There are difficult situations that arose with issues of delays in the delivery of the bodies, which extended the tragedy when people went to Forensic Medicine because we did not have enough equipment, nor the personnel to attend and the bodies had to be transferred to other cities, this situation ended with the new unit located in Barrancabermeja” indicated, Alfonso Eljach, District Mayor.
The mobile unit will allow autopsy procedures to be carried out and thus avoid the transfer of bodies to other cities. “It is a team designed to perform medical-legal necropsies where we do not have space to dispose of corpses; It has special filters, retainers, an air conditioner, an internet connection system and the facilities for the work of experts in their forensic work, with this there will no longer be a need to transfer bodies to other cities”, explained Jorge Humberto Rueda Soler, director northeast regional office of the National Institute of Legal Medicine and Forensic Sciences.
In the same way, the District Mayor’s Office managed to manage resources to expand services and new personnel who will take shifts during weekends, days when the service was not previously provided.
“We are no longer going to have to transfer corpses to Bucaramanga, which is a pain for families, nor that people have to wait for the weekend to pass to receive care, because in addition to the unit we managed to manage four shifts of doctors and people trained to do autopsies 24 hours a day, including weekends,” said Luis Manuel Toro, Secretary of the Interior of Barrancabermeja.
Now the challenge becomes to modernize the facilities of the entity in the District and turn it into a regional center that allows providing decent care to the Barranqueños and other municipalities near Magdalena Medio.
