The postmortem report on J Soosaimanicckam who died while undergoing training as a cadet officer of the navy in Lumut in May has been presented to his family, according to Perak Health Department director Dr Ding Lay Ming.

Ding said the postmortem at the Seri Manjung Hospital was conducted according to the existing standard operating procedures.

”The deceased’s family, however, was not satisfied with the postmortem findings and had lodged a formal report through the SISPAA (Public Complaint Management System) against the Seri Manjung Hospital last month,” she said in a statement here today.

Following the report, Ding said the Seri Manjung Hospital called for a meeting with the deceased’s family at 10am last Thursday (Sept 6) to enable the hospital to explain the findings of the postmortem.

However, she said the meeting could not be called to order as the family had requested their lawyers to be present.

“Their request was politely rejected by the hospital because according to the SOP, the hospital need not discuss (the portmortem findings) with any lawyers. Most probably the lawyers of Calvin Joseph (deceased’s brother) misunderstood this,” she said.

Ding said the Seri Manjung Hospital and Perak Health Department were always willing to help the deceased’s family to get any desired information on the postmortem.

The family’s lawyers, Zaid Malek and Mahajoth Singh in a statement yesterday called for the final and conclusive postmortem report to be released to the family immediately.

They claimed that on Sept 6, they had accompanied Calvin to the hospital for the meeting regarding the hospital’s refusal to release the final postmortem report to the deceased’s family.

However, they said that the hospital refused to allow them to accompany Calvin during the meeting as instructed by the Perak Health Department director Dr Noorisah Mahat Noor.

Soosaimanicckam was pronounced dead at 1.45 pm on May 19 at the Armed Forces Hospital.

Prior to that, he reportedly complained of chest pain and shortness of breath after completing a physical exercise which was part of his daily routine training.

- Bernama