65-902a. Delivery of unclaimed bodies to medical school; notice; expenses; receipts; records. It is hereby made the duty of each coroner or any other officer having charge or control over unclaimed dead human bodies which would otherwise be buried at public expense or on grounds reserved exclusively for pauper dead to notify immediately the chairman or head of the department of anatomy of the medical school of the university of Kansas, whenever any such body or bodies come into his possession, charge or control; and shall, without fee or reward, upon receipt of notice from the chairman or head of such department, release to the same, within seventy-two (72) hours after death, except those coroners' cases in which more time may be required, and permit said chairman or his agent to take and remove all such bodies for use within the state for the advancement of medical, surgical and anatomical science. All expenses in connection with the delivery of any such body to the department of anatomy of the medical school of the university of Kansas shall be paid by said department. Such notice shall be given in all cases, but no such body shall be so released if any relative or friend accept such body for burial pursuant to the provisions of K.S.A. 65-904; nor shall any dead body of any honorably discharged soldier, sailor or marine of the United States or other person whose burial is provided for under the provisions of article 2 of chapter 73 of the Kansas Statutes Annotated, be so delivered, but in such cases burial shall be made in accordance with such statutes.

Upon receiving notice of the death of any person, coming within the provisions of this act, the chairman or head of the department of anatomy of the university of Kansas shall within thirty-six (36) hours after such notice has been given authorize some person to receive the body and to transport it to the medical school of the university of Kansas. A receipt for the body shall be given to the person delivering same, which receipt shall be dated and entered in a book to be kept by said medical school and which record shall be open to public inspection. Such record shall be kept by register number of all bodies received. If the body is not needed, the chairman or head of said department shall so inform the proper officer, and the body shall receive decent burial; and if, within forty-eight (48) hours after notice has been given, said department does not notify the sender of such notice that the body is to be claimed, then said medical school shall be deemed to have waived all claims to such body.

History: L. 1951, ch. 359, § 3; L. 1953, ch. 287, § 1; L. 1965, ch. 164, § 8; June 30.