CASPER, Wyo. — Fremont County Coroner Mark Stratmoen shared a statement with County 10 on Thursday in which he alleged that the Wyoming Department of Health’s Vital Statistics Services has “intentionally and wrongfully altered” some death certificates as originally signed and certified by coroners or physicians in the state.
In a statement provided to Oil City News on Friday, Wyoming Department of Health Interim Director Stefan Johansson said that the department is aware of Startmoen’s allegations and have reviewed the situation and his media statement.
“I do not hesitate to say the department has not stepped outside of its legal authority or violated administrative rules or procedure with regards to death certificates issued in Fremont County or elsewhere,” Johansson said.
Stratmoen, whom County 10 said is expected to soon retire, said in his statement Thursday that “[i]n the last six months or so, it has come to light” that Vital Statistics Services had altered death certificates in a way he claims is against both their own rules and the law. Stratmoen claimed this has involved death certificates originating out of Fremont County as well as from “other coroner offices in the state, verified by communications with those offices and comparing original certifications to those issued as a final product by Vital Records.”
“In one of our cases, not only was the cause of death changed without permission or communication, but the location of the death was altered by 30 miles,” Stratmoen claimed.
Oil City attempted to reach Natrona County Coroner James Whipps via email on Thursday for comment on the matter, but had not received a response as of noon Friday.
Stratmoen said that complaints have been filed through some county attorney’s offices in regard to allegations that death certificate had been improperly altered.
“These complaints were also brought to the attention of the State Attorney General’s Office, as they are in charge of legal compliance of the various state departments,” Stratmoen said.
Johansson said that the Wyoming Department of Health has been working with the Wyoming Attorney General’s Office to address the concerns of stakeholders in Fremont County.
He said these efforts had already been initiated prior to Stratmoen’s statement on Thursday and that the efforts would continue.
“There is always room to improve communication and make processes more efficient,” Johansson said. He added that the department remains “committed to ensuring Wyoming residents are provided the highest possible level of service as well as reliable, accurate records. I have full faith and confidence in the quality work performed by the Vital Statistics Services staff.”
Stratmoen said that state statute and death certification rules in Wyoming “are very specific as to who and how these records are to be completed.”
“While they allow for Vital Records to make simple corrections to grammar or spelling, WDH and Vital Records rules, Chapter 10, section 5(c), specifically states ‘The medical certification of cause of death may be changed only upon receipt of a signed statement from the physician or coroner who signed the certificate,’” Stratmoen said in his statement. “The reason for this should be obvious: only physicians have access to personal interactions and detailed medical records in a natural death they attended, and only coroners through detailed scene investigation, records and discussions with a physician, post-mortem testing or autopsy and other methods, can come to a conclusion based on the entire circumstances of a death event. That is our sworn duty under the law.”
Stratmoen said that Vital Statistics should correct instances where death certificate information has been altered.
“The results so far are not positive,” he said. “Months have passed with the state only looking for excuses, rather than enforcing a correction. One excuse is that certifications have to fit the national CDC coding, so they changed things. I myself researched that coding on our cases and found national codes that fit the certification as originally signed, so that one is totally inaccurate.”
“Besides, coding requirements are for statistical standards, not a law for coroners, and real life and death does not always fit in a tidy bureaucratic box. In any case, the diversion of excuses, which I won’t refute each in detail here, does not change the fact that they broke their own rules and changed a legal signed document without permission, or even the courtesy of contacting our office.”
Stratmoen said that as he is planning to retire soon, so he won’t be able to officially pursue the issue.
“Since this has not been resolved or stopped, this leaves the public with only one option,” he said. “Since the state department responsible for issuing legal documentation of serious events can no longer be trusted to be accurate, each member of the public that goes through the trauma of the death of a family member now will have to check the certificates they receive and see if it matches for accuracy what they have been told by a coroner in a case. That is not how the system is supposed to work, and a public trust has been violated.”
