Workers have stumbled upon a "bone room" containing the remains of multiple unknown people inside a Melbourne health agency's corporate offices.
A nurse educator noticed fluid leaking into a hallway from a disused room at Eastern Health's administrative building, opposite Box Hill Hospital, on February 14, Melbourne's Coroners Court was told on Thursday.
She entered the room and found bone and tissue fragments inside containers and waste bins and reported the incident to infection prevention and control officers within Monash Medical School, counsel assisting the coroner Lauren Bedggood said.
Two days later, an ear nose and throat surgeon accessed the room and found an orange bucket in a fridge containing human bones, which were preserved in formaldehyde.
The "bone room", which was found one level below Eastern Health's executive offices, was reported to the Coroners Court on February 27.
The court contacted police the following day to report discovery of the remains.
"They attended the bone room and found that the scene had been cleaned and the remains placed within yellow hazardous waste bins," Ms Bedggood said.
"A plastic bag containing unknown identified material was also located within the freezer section of the fridge."
The remains were photographed and sent off for forensic testing.
Eastern Health has claimed the room was set up by the clinical director of ear, nose and throat surgery in 2008, with the remains studied by medical trainees.
However, there are no records that prove the room was used for studying or teaching anatomy, and no records about the origin of the remains.
Eastern Health claimed it had purchased the remains from the University of Melbourne in 2014, but the university reported having no record of this, Ms Bedggood said.
Coroner Paul Lawrie is investigating whether the remains can be classified as a reportable death or deaths.
"Ordinarily this starts with the identity of the deceased, but here we have remains, and understand that they are remains from a number of individuals ... and all are unidentified," he said.
He said forensic testing had not helped identify whose remains they were, nor where the remains may have come from.
Eastern Health has engaged an external investigator to examine the incident and recommend changes to framework, processes and policies.
The public health body's lawyer Karen Cusack said it was trying to figure out the source of the remains by interviewing current and former staff, as there are no other records.
"The search for the records has turned up nothing," she said.
"We're hoping perhaps some of the former staff may be able to point to some other records, there might be some personal records that have been kept."
She said Eastern Health was yet to take a formal statement from its former director of head and neck surgery, Sherryl Wagstaff.
"The current chief medical officer believes that Sherryl Wagstaff might have a lot more information," Ms Curack said.
"I believe there was some differences of opinion when she left Eastern Health."
The coroner directed Eastern Health take a statement from Dr Wagstaff and finalise the first stage of its investigation in the next four to six weeks.
