Spokane County’s medical examiners are preparing to move to a new home.
On Thursday, they’ll begin the transition to a newly-renovated facility downtown. Medical Examiner Sally Aiken and other county officials led tours of the space today [Tuesday].
For 35 years, the medical examiner’s office has occupied space near Holy Family Hospital.
“We’ve done some updates through the years to try to improve the lighting, but it was designed for two people, two people total. And now we have 14 people in our office working and it’s been really crowded. Many days all hands are on deck and it’s like a zoo. There’s so many people in there that you can’t think," Aiken said.
The current facility allows the county to store up to 17 bodies. County officials say the new lab can hold around 100. In addition, it provides more lab space for autopsies and other procedures and observation rooms where people can watch those being done.
The cost of renovating the new facility is about $10 million. Most of that was paid for by county capital funding, though grant funding helped pay for some new equipment.