Confusion over Health Dept order to civil surgeons

Tribune News Service

Patiala, October 14

Forensic medicine experts working in medical colleges under the Punjab Government have urged the state Health and Family Welfare Department to give clarification about its order sent to all civil surgeons in the state that in cases of alleged murder or suicide cases, the postmortem should be conducted by specialised forensic teams at the district and state-level hospitals. The order had been passed by the National Commission for Women which had taken cognizance of the media reports regarding alleged dowry death of a woman in April this year at Samana in Patiala district.

Dr DS Bhullar, President of the Punjab Academy of Forensic Medicine & Toxicology (PAFMAT), said this order by the state health directorate was being wrongly interpreted by forensic and medical experts dealing with postmortem examination of murder and suicide cases in government hospitals across the state. Some medical officers had even started referring such cases to the forensic experts in the medical colleges, he said.

It will not only lead to flooding of the mortuaries in the medical colleges and chaos, but will also result in big public harassment, including relatives and police, for brining dead bodies from far off places to the medical colleges, thus resulting in long delays in postmortem and cremation of bodies, along with quality of work being compromised.

“PAFMAT has been demanding from years to create posts of forensic medicine experts in the district hospitals 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,” said an expert.

“We have sent a request to Minister of Health and Medical Education Brahm Mohindra for an urgent meeting to discuss the whole issue in public interest to sort out the issue, said Bhullar.