By Nancy McVicar 

‘NEED AN AUTOPSY’

Dr. Abdullah Fatteh distributes a flyer with that cryptic headline to funeral directors, attorneys and hospital administrators in South Florida, letting them know he is available to do autopsies for famlies seeking answers about a loved one's death. "I will be happy to perform an autopsy anywhere at a short notice, even in the evenings or on weekends," Fatteh’s flyer says. Fatteh and other independent purveyors of autopsy services say they provide a needed service because families are sometimes left with lots of questions but cannot get the hospital to perform an autopsy.

"Dead people need a voice. There’s no one to defend them," said Vidal Herrera, a Southern Californian who drives a van with a sign advertising his phone number, 1-800-AUTOPSY.

The hospital does not have to perform an autopsy just because the next-of-kin asks for one. A physician involved with the case must maek the request. Herrera, a former investigator for the Los Angeles County Medical Examiner’s office, has a private autopsy business that has brought him clients from as far away as St. Petersburg and Cleveland. "We offer private autopsies, forensic autopsies, disinterment, and exhumations, and partial and limited autopsies," he said. Business is booming, even though the average cost is about $2,000.

"We have more than we can handle," Vidal said, so he is prepareing to open franchises in other cities around the country, including Miami. Fatteh, a former medical examiner for Broward County, performs private autopsies as a sideline to his work as a family practitioner in Plantation. During a 20-year career as a medcial examiner, her has performed 6,000 autopsies, he said. Fattteh and Vidal oftern perform their private autopsies at a funeral home. "If a family expresses interest in having an autopsy independent of the hospital (where the person died), then I will do the autopsy in the funeral home, but sometime at the hospital," Fatteh said. He said the hospitals’ pathologists may not want to be involved if there I a question of liability involving the hospital or medical staff there. But occasionally the hospital will say ‘you an do this autopsy and we’ll pay for it because they want to maintain a good relationship with the family, and demonstrate to them that they are going every step to find all the answers," Fatteh. said.