Setting up an off-site emergency mortuary facility (EMF) to deal with a DVI incident: disaster victim management (DVM)

Forensic mortuaries in all Australian jurisdictions are dealing with increasing workloads, with routine cases regularly occupying greater than 50%, and often as much as 85%, of existing cold room body storage capacity, particularly over long weekends and during seasonal increases in respiratory infections. Hence the need to deal with a sudden influx of deceased persons or multiple body parts in a mass fatality incident would overwhelm most Australian forensic mortuaries, thereby requiring other means of body storage and processing. Exercise “Construct” was a joint South Australian Police (SAPol) and Forensic Science South Australia exercise designed to practice the establishment and construction of an emergency mortuary facility (EMF) to deal with a mass fatality incident and the subsequent disaster victim identification process. The aims of the exercise were to test preparedness, activation and construction processes relative to the establishment of an EMF. The exercise provided the opportunity to identify gaps in the capacity to successfully complete the tasks within the allotted time frames. The exercise reinforced the need to have a comprehensive and clearly documented process which must include a current list of suppliers who can deliver goods and services in a timely manner. The aim of this paper is to report on the exercise findings and share the experience with other jurisdictions. It will also provide other jurisdictions with the opportunity to consider whether the South Australian model will be useful to them in improving their own response when confronted with a mass fatality incident that may overwhelm existing local mortuary capacities and capabilities.