Photo: Premier Darrell Dexter turns sod for the new medical examiner's facility in Dartmouth while Justice Minister Ross Landry (left), and Dr. Matthew Bowes, the Chief Medical Examiner for the province, watch.

A new provincial medical examiner's facility will meet the growing need for autopsies, improve services for families who have lost loved ones and will help to train doctors.

Premier Darrell Dexter and Justice Minister Ross Landry marked the start of construction of a new Nova Scotia Medical Examiner's facility with a sod-turning on Wednesday, Sept. 7, 2011. The new facility will be located at 51 Garland Avenue in the Burnside Business Park in Dartmouth.

Facts about the new facility:

Site: 0.64 hectare (about 1.6 acres)
Size: 2 stories, 27,000-square-feet
Building: 2 adjacent L-shaped buildings with separate air exchangers for safety, modeled after Miami-Dade County facility
Cost: $12.9 million
Time to complete: 14 months
Autopsy tables: 4

Other Highlights:

• Private meeting room for families
• Highly secure facility
• Hookups to allow more capacity in event of a catastrophe
• Training space for partner organizations (EHS, police, Crown prosecutors, etc.) and medical education

Supporting

• Release: Construction Begins on New Medical Examiner's Facility (2011-09-07)
• Fact Sheet: N.S. Medical Examiner Service and New Facility (PDF)
• Image: Building Exterior, rendering (High-Res JPG)
• Image: Building Arial View, rendering (High-Res JPG)
• Image: Autopsy Room, rendering (High-Res JPG)