Who does the post-mortem?

It is not the forensic medicine specialist, but the gynaecologist, anaesthetist, obstetrician and the general physician who performs the post-mortem in Telangana.

In most of Telangana’s 103 hospitals, post-mortem examinations (PME), so vital for the justice system, are conducted by gynaecologists, anaesthetists, obstetricians, general physicians or doctors from other disciplines – not by actual forensic medicine specialist doctors.

Forensic experts point out that PMEs by such doctors are invariably inaccurate, lack the depth that comes from an expert forensic doctor, are unskilled and also consist of amateurish opinions.

Senior doctors familiar with forensic medicine point out that doctors from other disciplines who have to do PME also have to make frequent visits to courts for deposition, which creates a lot of problem for patients due to their absence.

Forensic medicine experts point out that the involvement of ‘unqualified’ doctors in PMEs is resulting in inadequacy of data needed to nail medico-legal cases. The charge is that only Osmania General Hospital and Gandhi Hospital have medico-legal departments and elsewhere medical officers from other departments are being forced to handle forensic medicine cases.

“Majority hesitate to do medico-legal work because they need to attend courts. Imagine the plight of a patient needing emergency surgery but the anaesthesia doctor is attending a court case because he participated in a PME. There is a lack of quality PME reports produced by MBBS doctors, which is a disservice for persons seeking justice,” says general secretary of the Emerging Forensic Medicine Doctors Association S. Suraj.

There has been a demand for the post of forensic medicine specialist, at least in the each of the district headquarters, which would be headed by a qualified doctor with an MD in Forensic Medicine.

Apart from poor quality PME reports, another problem that the lack of forensic medicine specialists pose is when relatives of the deceased want a second opinion.

“Gandhi and Osmania General Hospitals are the only tertiary hospitals in Telangana that can provide a second opinion. Forensic departments here are swamped with requests for a second opinion. There is an urgent need to create district medico-legal experts or doctors to handle such cases,” forensic medicine doctors observe.