Health Ministry to compensate family for wrongly giving away body

The Health Ministry will pay an ex-gratia to the family of Fong Meng Tuck whose dead body was wrongly handed over to another family by Penang Hospital's Forensic Department in November last year.

Its Deputy Minister Datuk Seri Dr Hilmi Yahaya said the matter had been brought to ministry level and it is discussing the amount of compensation to be paid to Fong's family.

"We regret the error and admitted our mistake at the hospital. Police had made a statement on the matter that the cremated body belonged to the Fong family.

"We accepted the police statement and we are negotiating on an ex-gratia compensation the family," he said in a press conference after closing the 1Malaysia Health Expedition (KS1M) here today.

The HPP Forensic Department was earlier reported to have wrongly handed over the body of Fong to another family who also came to claim the body of a 73-year-old man who died of a heart attack at about 12 noon in November last year.

They later took the body for a cremation ceremony before collecting the ash.

Fong's son who went to claim his father's body at about 2pm was shocked to be informed the body was no longer at HPP.

Police later confirmed the body wrongly given out was Fong after the results of DNA tests on blood samples of his three sons by the Chemistry Department was found having a 99.9 match with Fong.

Asked the allegations of the Fong family that the ministry had yet to reply on the matter, Dr Hilmi said the ministry would be resolving the matter soon.

-- BERNAMA