National Cardiovascular Research Center in Osaka apologizes for mistakenly performing autopsy on the wrong body

The National Cardiovascular Research Center in Suita City, Osaka recently published an apology to the family of a bereaved man in his 70s after mistakenly performing an autopsy on his body. 

In May, the National Cardiovascular Research Center had plans to perform an autopsy to discover the specific cause of death of a man in his 70s who passed away during hospitalization after a heart attack. However, they had mistook his body with another man also in his 70s, and passed away due to a heart attack at around the same time and performed the procedures on him instead. 

Both bodies were kept in the same space in the hospital, and the center only found out that this was the wrong person after realizing that his body did not have surgical marks like the one that was originally scheduled to be operated on. 

The center apologized to the bereaved family, explaining how the mistake was made due to insufficient confirmation from physicians and laboratory technicians, and promised to establish a new manual for identity confirmation of individuals who are scheduled to undergo autopsy to prevent similar incidents from happening in the future. 

The National Cardiovascular Research Center said,” We will work hard to prevent such incidents from happening again and restore everyone’s trust.” 

Source: NHK