Health Dept fails to rectify order

Gagan K Teja

Tribune News Service

Patiala, December 10

The Directorate of Health Services, Punjab, has failed to rectify its order sent to all Civil Surgeons in the state that has the direction that in cases of alleged murder or suicide, post-mortem examinations should be conducted by specialised forensic teams at district/state-level hospitals as directed by the National Commission for Women, leading to confusion among medical officers working in civil hospitals and forensic medicine specialists in state medical colleges.

According to Dr DS Bhullar, president, Punjab Academy of Forensic Medicine and Toxicology (PAFMAT), a state body of forensic medicine and medico-legal experts, the Health Department should rectify this order with immediate effect along with creating posts of forensic medicine specialists in all district-level civil hospitals in the state to deal with medico-legal postmortem cases at the local level without referring bodies to medical colleges. In the absence of forensic medicine experts in most of the district civil hospitals, some doctors working in the field have started referring all cases of homicidal and suicidal cases to medical colleges for examination by forensic experts.

“If this practice is not stopped, it will not only lead to flooding of mortuaries in medical colleges and a chaos but will also result in big harassment of the public, including relatives and the police, for bringing bodies from far-off places to medical colleges, thus resulting in long delays in postmortem and cremation of bodies along with quality of work being compromised,” he said.

PAFMAT has been demanding from years to create posts of forensic medicine experts in district-level hospitals in Punjab with posting of forensic medicine specialists who can properly and technically handle all medico-legal cases, including postmortem of unnatural deaths, in the interest of justice and the time has come to act by the state government, say forensic experts.

According to sources, the Department of Forensic Medicine, Government Medical College, Patiala, is facing shortage of paramedical staff with no postmortem assistant, no postmortem technician, no technical assistant, no clerk or data entry operator, no departmental photographer, no chowkidar, no peon and only two sweeper-cum-mortuary attendants working round the clock in violation to the Advisory issued by the Director General of Health Services, GoI, to Principal Secretaries of all states.

According to this advisory, in Rajindra Hospital mortuary where over 800 autopsies are conducted per year, there should be posting of at least two postmortem assistants, two postmortem technicians, two technical assistants, a clerk or data entry operator, a photographer, a peon, four chowkidars and eight sweepers or attendants in the mortuary, thus a serious threat of de-recognition of the specialty of forensic medicine by the Medical Council of India. Also, cold chambers for storing the bodies often remain non- functional probably due to poor quality and there is an urgent need to construct a cold room along with a proper waiting room and toilets for people accompanying the bodies.

The specialty of forensic medicine and toxicology was being ignored by successive state governments and the time had come to recognise the importance of this branch in the medical field in the interest of justice to society, especially when the judiciary has shown deep concern about the status of medico-legal services in the state, said Bhullar.