AN ACT to appropriate funds for a new wake forest BAPTIST health regional AUTOPSY center in WINSTON‑salem.

Whereas, Wake Forest Baptist Health (WFBH) Regional Autopsy Center is currently performing autopsies in a space that is inadequate to facilitate current and future estimated volume, presents significant operational challenges, and is not compliant with National Association of Medical Examiners autopsy standards; and

Whereas, in 2018, the WFBH Regional Autopsy Center performed 1,226 postmortem examinations. This number is expected to increase due to the anticipated growth in population and deaths resulting from the opioid epidemic; and

Whereas, in order to remedy this situation, plans have been made to construct a new WFBH Regional Autopsy Center on the Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center Clarkson Campus, located in Winston‑Salem; and

Whereas, the WFBH Regional Autopsy Center will provide approximately 1,760 medicolegal autopsies per year for the 32 counties in western North Carolina which it serves and provide eight autopsy workstations, refrigerated storage for 50 bodies, and appropriate support facilities, equipment rooms, and building support; Now, therefore,

The General Assembly of North Carolina enacts:

SECTION 1.  There is appropriated from the General Fund to the Wake Forest University Baptist Medical Center, a nonprofit corporation, the sum of three million six hundred twenty‑eight thousand one hundred nineteen dollars ($3,628,119) in nonrecurring funds for the 2021‑2022 fiscal year and the sum of seventeen million nine hundred seventy‑two thousand three hundred sixty‑two dollars ($17,972,362) in nonrecurring funds for the 2022‑2023 fiscal year to help fund the construction of the new Wake Forest Baptist Health Regional Autopsy Center in Winston‑Salem.

SECTION 2.  This act becomes effective July 1, 2021.