In Westchester our medical examiner is under Labs and Research. They are a separate County department, and they are County employees.
We contract out with Monroe County Medical Examiners Office.
Genesee and Orleans contract out for ME services to Monroe County. Their ME office is run through the Health Department. We do have local elected coroners in both counties that respond to deaths and make determinations on which ones go to the MEs office.
For both Yates and Schuyler Counties the Medical Examiner services are through the LHD. In Yates County the contract is with Monroe County Department of Health and the contract is with the Sheriff’s Office.
Rensselaer County has a Medical Examiner’s Program and we employ a Medical Examiner and we employ 3 FTE and 4 part time Medico-Legal Death Investigators. Because Dr. Sikirica is a forensic pathologist other counties contract with him through his own business.
The Center for Forensic Medicine, which includes the Office of The Medical Examiner, is part of the Rockland County Department of Health. It is led by our Chief Medical Examiner who is a Forensic Pathologist. She reports to the Commissioner of Health of Rockland County.
In Ulster County we have a hybrid of services. As per Ulster County Law the ME reports to the Commissioner of Health and must be a physician residing in Ulster County. The ME and Deputy ME are County employees. The Forensic Pathologist’s services are obtained through a contract with the hospital. We also have a contract with the hospital for use of its morgue space. We use NMS Labs for toxicology testing.
We contract with Onondaga DOH’s ME.
Oneida County Health Department contracts with Onondaga Medical Examiner for our services.
We have four coroners and contract with a pathologist for our autopsies…..we contract with Monroe County ME office for our forensic cases…..about a dozen a year.
Erie has 3 medical examiners on staff and one contractor to cover when needed. A 4th ME will start working at Erie in a few weeks. Last year for a period of time we only had 2 MEs and one was on maternity leave so we had to hire FFS MEs from NYC which was very expensive.
Allegany County contracts out to Olean General Hospital for routine autopsies and Monroe County Medical Examiner’s Office, which is housed in their Health Department, for all others.
Wyoming County contracts with the Monroe County Medical Examiner, so it is an Inter-Municipal Agreement. Would be helpful if this were restored to Article 6 eligibility…
We have 3 medical examiners on staff. We also use contract examiner to do specific things like brain histopathology, but that is not as significant a work load as our regular MEs carry. Prior to hiring our last ME, we sometimes used contracted MEs who would fly in from NYC.
Dutchess has its own Medical Examiner.
We have a ME program in Schenectady, we have 1 ME on county staff and we have a contract with a forensic pathologist for our homicide cases and to cover when our ME is on vacation.
We contract with Erie County Department of Health for our medical examiner services.
For Chemung County, we have a group of 4 medical examiners that rotate their availability. Some of them we contract with and some are county employees. We do not contract with a hospital or medical group.
Wayne County has Coroners and we contract with Monroe County’s Medical Examiner for autopsies.
In Orange County the Medical Examiner’s Office falls under the Department of Health. We have a Chief Medical Examiner and a Deputy who perform their services and several other county positions/employees who provide support for the Division. We do have contracted Medical Examiners who can provide services when the two other doctors are not available.
Cayuga County has an elected Coroner, not ME. The Coroner has a number of coroner assistants who rotate on call. Our county contracts with Onondaga County Medical Examiner Office for ME work needed.
Per the Chautauqua County charter, the coroner program is under Public Health; coroners are appointed by the legislature and work in conjunction with our employed part-time county physicians on death investigations. Any required autopsy services are contracted with the Erie County Medical Examiner’s office. We looked into our own ME Office but it is very cost-prohibitive, forensic pathologists are very hard to find, and no local hospital has the facilities nor are they interested in it.
We have County elected Coroners.
Jefferson County has an individual and we have a back-up contract with a Onondaga County ME for 10 cases per year for coverage when our ME is off or has too many cases.