I had a very unusual day yesterday. A child had sadly passed on but not before we did a scan on her brain which revealed multiple brain abnormalities. There were so many things seen in her brain that was unusual that nobody could say with certainty what it was.

When the child sadly passed on, the hospital management offered to take care of the Autopsy which is essentially series of activities carried out to find out how and why a patient died. We believed that if we found out what caused those abnormal brain lesions, we could prevent further occurrences. It was a noble idea. All we needed was the parent's consent for us to go ahead.

We never got that consent. The father repeatedly asked us "whether his daughter will be resurrected after we had successfully found out the cause of the death of his baby". He was polite and I understand that he was grieving for his child but his two brothers would have none of it. They were aggressive, declared us incompetent, told us that we wanted to conduct an "experiment" on their niece and all sorts of unprintable things. We pleaded, called other senior doctors to appeal to them but we still got an emphatic NO.

And therein lies the question? Why? Why do we kick against autopsy especially when it concerns children? Is there really more than meets the eye on this? I really need to understand. I am appealing to everyone, please, without autopsies, medicine would never have existed. It is how we know and understand better how diseases affect our bodies. What better way can we protect our loved ones and ourselves? Please, let's change our perception towards autopsy. It is for our own good and future.

www.kiddiesmatters.com

Only the guilty fears autopsy

It's all respect for the dead. Not that I'm a fan of superstition, but I don't think I'll opt for mutilation after death. Autopsy serves a wonderful purpose though.

I will personally take that they know why she is dead, so they don't need you digging or illiteracy.