Earlier this month officials were at the Cherokee Fire Station to put together a plan for death investigations at the county level. Cherokee Regional Medical Center has announced that they can no longer do death investigations after July 1. Their reasons are that they don’t have staff available for these around the clock death investigations. The four people that had performed death investigations can’t while on shift because of rising costs and lack of staff availability. Originally the Hospital had said they were not going to be able to do this any longer than January 1, 2023 but now agreed to have July 1 as their deadline.
Cherokee County’s Emergency Management Coordinator, Justin Pitts explained to those in attendance that all deaths in Iowa have to be investigated unless the death occurs in a nursing home or the patient was under Hospice. The Board of Supervisors are responsible to have death investigators and pay for their services.
There are about 30 deaths per year in Cherokee County that require investigations. A single death investigation is about three to four hours and the report has to be submitted within 10 days of the investigation. Like anything else, this has become longer and the Hospital stated that now this is more than they had agreed to when they started.
Any individual that wants to become an investigator has to have initial training like the 22-hour Midwest Death Investigation Course at Des Moines Area Community College located at Ankeny. But this course isn’t all—there is continuing education required. One of the main ideas for an investigator was using someone in law enforcement as there have been many retired law enforcement officers that offered to go to a training program and thereby helping the county.
Police Chief for Marcus/ Aurelia, Brian Flikeid and Deputy Jackie Stephens were interested in this position. Flikeid was a detective with Storm Lake Police Department already has had death investigation training as well as experience while Stephens is currently in training.
Flikeid stated that there had not been a death in Marcus or Aurelia that he had not been there for in the years he has been Chief in these towns. The investigator might have to drive an hour or so to reach the destination of the death, and basically ask the same questions that Flikeid had with the answers already there—so it would make sense to use law enforcement for this position.
He also suggested having a program administrator to handle on call scheduling as well as guaranteeing 24/7 coverage. He, Stephens, or a combination of two or others could be this program administrator. A program administrator would keep track of the hours worked that would be paid for by the county. However, Flikeid stated that intergovernmental 28E agreements would be needed with both Marcus and Aurelia for him to be able to take on this job. (This is what City Attorney Herbold is doing that was stated at the Marcus City Council meeting.)
Flikeid and Stephens each being on duty for more than 3,000 hours annually, this wouldn’t be a problem of filling the gaps with other death investigators as there is a small average number of deaths in the county that do require a death investigator and the bottom line is that—this should be a manageable task for him as well as Stephens.
Time is running out and July 1 will be here before we know it. As nothing was agreed on at this meeting, there will still be another meeting dealing with this situation.