The coroner said the attorney general's office has requested autopsies but, because of the condition of the bodies, it may be difficult to determine why so many patients died at Memorial.
At a news conference today, Dr. Louis Cataldie, the Louisiana health official who's in charge of the process, says the autopsies required by the attorney general are slowing down the identification and return of bodies to relatives.
They have not been released to relatives because autopsies are being performed as part of the state attorney general's investigation of nursing home deaths in Katrina's wake.