The Oklahoma Medical Examiner’s office is on life support, and it’s time the state Legislature got serious about how to resolve the long-term problems plaguing this important state agency.
As Senate President Pro Tem Glenn Coffee has rightly pointed out, Oklahoma’s families deserve quick resolution when dealing with a loved one’s death under suspicious or traumatic circumstances. That is currently not the case for Oklahoma families who must wait sometimes up to nine months for an autopsy report to be issued by the state ME’s office.
What’s worse is the state Medical Examiner has stated that due to inadequate funding, staffing and antiquated equipment, this state office is no longer capable of handling all of the autopsies the office is mandated by state law to perform. This is an unacceptable tragedy.
Highlighting the issue again this week was the power outage that impacted the Oklahoma City building where the office’s morgue is kept. Emergency generators were required to help prevent any damage to the corpses and specimens that must remain refrigerated. The outage also caused lost work time as nonessential personnel were sent home Monday.
The office’s facility is so woefully outdated that even a retrofit of the building would be a dubious expenditure.
University of Central Oklahoma President W. Roger Webb and his staff have offered a solution. Their proposal, supported by the City of Edmond and the majority of Edmond’s legislative delegation, is to move the ME’s office to a new facility on UCO’s campus. This would complete a new forensic research powerhouse in our state with the location of the Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation’s Forensic Science Center and UCO’s new Forensic Science Institute across from each other in Edmond. With agreements such as the one UCO made last week with a nationally recognized lab in South Carolina, Oklahoma is poised to become a center of forensic research and education unparalleled anywhere else. That’s good not only for UCO, but also for the Edmond and state economies as private resources relocate to be near such synergistic partnerships.
With the amount of resource sharing made possible by this move, it only makes sense to help the Medical Examiner’s office achieve a new start. The agency is underfunded, under-staffed and trying to shake off scandal from prior employees’ poor actions. Now is the time to plan for a better future for this agency. The proposal made in Senate Bill 738 is to issue a $30 million bond for a new building to be located on the UCO campus.
We understand there are many needs piling up at the state’s doorstep, especially as the purse strings are continuing to tighten for next year. We also understand that Oklahoma has a history of allowing problems to linger while we all bemoan a lack of funding. But lack of funding or no, our citizens deserve some dignity, even in death.
Our View
Dignity in death
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OUR VIEW: Feb. 14 vote about ideas
If you read any of the letters to the editor in the past two weeks regarding Tuesday’s District 2 Edmond school board race, then you already know that this election is not about the individual candidates so much as it’s about what type of school board do Edmond residents really want governing their school district?
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OUR VIEW: Bright spots highlight 2011
Last year was mostly marked with grim economic news and continued worries for the future by most individuals and businesses. However, there were several bright spots that highlighted 2011 and they are good examples why Edmond continues to weather the nation’s economic storms better than most.
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City still needs a business navigator
At the outset of her first term in office, then-Mayor Patrice Douglas appointed a task force dedicated to helping the City of Edmond better understand the needs of small businesses in our city. This task force met for several months and released a number of recommendations for how the city could better serve this huge sector of its economy.
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OUR VIEW: It’s time to bring ME’s office to Edmond
The exhumation of Dwite Morgan’s body earlier this month by state and local authorities is a travesty and symbolizes what has been wrong with the Oklahoma Medical Examiner’s office.
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OUR VIEW: HOPE needs your help
Stories like the one shared today by Oneka Parker on page A1 are both troubling and uplifting at the same time. It’s a stark realization that so many Edmond residents find themselves in crisis and in need of basic, everyday supplies. But it’s a blessing to know that someplace like the nonprofit HOPE Center exists to help residents like Parker.
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Our View: Sustainment center good news for Tinker
The Air Logistics Center at Tinker Air Force Base will now be a command site for a new Air Force sustainment and logistics center. Other changes include adding a three-star general that oversees operations at Tinker and two other Air Force bases.
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Our View: DHS needs an overhaul
A recent conviction of an Edmond foster mother has added fuel to the angry fire of scorn heaped at Oklahoma’s child welfare system. The system has been rocked by multiple recent failures ending in the loss of very young, innocent lives entrusted to either the state’s care or supervision.
In the case of Amy L. Holder, she was convicted of felony child abuse and ordered to pay a $5,000 fine plus a $10,000 assessment to the victim’s compensation fund with no jail time in the death of 2-year-old Naomi Whitecrow. Family members of the victim seethed with anger at how the system failed their young relative. -
Peters exemplifies service
This Friday is special for more than just a national commemoration of Veterans Day. It also will mark the induction of Edmond resident Oren Lee Peters and eight other military veterans into the Oklahoma Military Hall of Fame. The annual banquet will take place at 6:30 p.m. at Oklahoma Christian University. The ceremony also will posthumously honor 14 Comanche code talkers who made pivotal contributions to encoding communications during World War II.
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OUR VIEW: Brain gain plan needs to start earlier
Gov. Mary Fallin came to the University of Central Oklahoma campus along with State Superintendent Janet Barresi in September and touted her new “brain gain” initiative. The goal of the new program is to increase the 30,500 college degrees conferred annually now by 67 percent to 50,900 degrees annually by the year 2023.
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Our View: Time to look at what’s next
With voter confidence strongly behind city leaders, the Public Safety Center project can now move to the planning stage.
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OUR VIEW: Feb. 14 vote about ideas
