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The Tennessean New morgue will serve Metro, state The Metro medical examiner's office is counting down to Saturday's move
from the tan cube of a building that's been home since the mid-1980s to
an airy, brand-new facility it will share with the state medical examiner's
office in east Nashville. Saturday, moving day, will be the ''first day in four years that we haven't done autopsies,'' Metro Medical Examiner Dr. Bruce Levy said. Levy is also the state medical examiner. The 20,000-square-foot Center for Forensic Medicine will house the Metro and state medical examiners' offices. It is the first time the state office has had a home, state officials said. A ribbon-cutting ceremony is set for 10 a.m. today. The public may tour the building between 10:30 a.m. and 3:30 p.m. today. It will be open for operation on Sunday. Medical examiners' offices performs autopsies in suspicious and unexpected deaths and provide testimony in court. Metro's staff of about 20 includes four physicians and five investigators, plus technicians and administrative workers. ''I think this building will be considered a good to excellent building probably for the next 25 to 30 years,'' Levy said Monday. The building was planned using projections for the next 20 years and into the future. Levy worked with architects Johnson, Johnson and Crabtree in designing the facility, which more than doubles the current space of the Metro medical examiner at 84 Hermitage Ave., just south of downtown. Work on the new building started last September, Levy said. The building is owned by the state, but Metro will lease space and share in operating costs, said state Health Commissioner Fredia Wadley. Levy is enthusiastic about working in the $5 million structure. Its design borrows what he calls the best features of older buildings, such as ceiling-mounted water hoses to make it easier to quickly clean the autopsy rooms, and the latest technology, such as a portable X-ray machine. The old Metro facility had just two windows, along the rear of the building, for security reasons, but light floods through the new building via skylights and windows. Light helps make it easier to see the procedures and allows better photographs to be made, he said. Autopsies were conducted in tan-tiled rooms in the old building, but the new autopsy rooms are paneled in iceberg-white Corian, a man-made material used in homes for kitchen and bathroom countertops. Families who come to the new building after a loved one has died will be able to sit on an oak-trimmed couch or chair in a room that looks more like one at home than one in an official building. The old building had only a lobby, with no room to talk in private with family members. The new building, at 850 R.S. Gass Blvd., is just down the street from the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation's headquarters. The location will aid in the sharing of information between the two agencies, Levy said. The structure also will help other counties in Tennessee by providing a backup facility where autopsies can be done when needed. Levy said he talked with the staff in his office to get their ideas for
the new building. |
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