The Hindu : Not even skeleton staff for post-mortem

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Thursday, Apr 03, 2003

Southern States

Southern States - Tamil Nadu-Chennai

Not even skeleton staff for post-mortem

By K.T. Sangameswaran

CHENNAI APRIL 2. More than the controversy it has created, the March 25 shootout in which two militants of the Tamil Nadu Liberation Army died, at Kotturpuram here, has again brought into focus the shortage of qualified forensic surgeons in government hospitals in the city and other parts of the State to conduct post-mortem in sensational cases.

The practice of rushing experts from one institution to another in an emergency has almost come to stay what with the "lethargic attitude" of the Government in filling up vacancies in the Department of Forensic Medicine (DFM) in government hospitals, and thereby causing a burden on available hands inconvenience to the public. "Thanks to the availability of a qualified hand on the date the post-mortem on the bodies of Rajaram and Saravanan was conducted, the government saved its face", says an informed source.

The situation in government hospitals in Chennai seems no better than in districts. At the Madras Medical College, where three professors and six assistant professors have been sanctioned for the DFM, at present there is only one professor, who is also the director of the Institute of Forensic Medicine, and one assistant professor. Similarly, as against the sanctioned strength of three professors and two assistant professors in the Stanley Medical College Hospital, there is no qualified hand. Two serving assistant professors are not qualified in forensic medicine.

At the Kilpauk Medical College Hospital, there is only one professor and another has been deputed to the Tuticorin Medical College. Worst is the situation in the Royapettah Hospital (GRH), where in spite of a sanctioned strength of one professor and an assistant professor, the department is manned by a civil assistant surgeon without forensic qualification.

The department is completely vacant in the Coimbatore Medical College too. In Madurai, as against the sanctioned strength of three professors and four assistant professors, there is only one professor and an assistant professor.

On March 25, when the bodies were brought to the GRH, there was only a doctor and no qualified forensic surgeon available to perform autopsy. Fortunately, a professor of Forensic Medicine of the KMC, teaching institution to which the GRH is attached, was rushed there to assist the doctor. The Government's indifferent attitude, not filling up vacancies, could land the authorities in trouble. If the services of a qualified surgeon attached to a hospital cannot be utilised in another institution for reasons of either his workload or his preoccupation with court work, post-mortem in sensational cases will suffer, say hospital sources.

Based on the report of an officer, who enquired into the death of one Chidambaram in police custody in 1977, the Government issued an order three years later saying that wherever a teaching medical institution was available, a professor or assistant professor of forensic medicine should be entrusted with post-mortem. Later, it issued a circular that post-mortem on the bodies of victims covered under police standing orders 144 (3) and 145 might be done by a team of doctors.

The National Human Rights Commission went a step further and laid down that all post-mortem examinations on deaths in police custody and jails be video filmed and cassettes, along with the autopsy report, sent to it. The NHRC was of the prime facie view that the local doctor succumbed to police pressure, leading to distortion of facts.

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