The Hindu : Tamil Nadu / Chennai News : Hospitals ill-equipped to perform autopsies

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Tuesday, Oct 17, 2006
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Tamil Nadu

Tamil Nadu - Chennai

Hospitals ill-equipped to perform autopsies

R. Sujatha and Divya Ramamurthi

Poor payment, lack of staff and infrastructure cited as reasons Lack of staff, infrastructure cited as reasons

R. Sujatha and

Divya Ramamurthi

CHENNAI: Lack of infrastructure, staff shortage and poor remuneration have made it difficult to carry out autopsies in government hospitals, according to forensic science experts.

"We do not have the tools nor are we given enough time to do a good job. What we do is just butchery," says an expert. Autopsies are done on request by the family or on the basis of a police inquest. "Usually it takes three hours to do an autopsy but we feel pressured to do it in 30 minutes. Otherwise, family members block roads."

Government hospitals in the city and even the lone private teaching medical college hospital authorised to do autopsies are not equipped to handle the bodies brought to their morgues.

The four government hospitals — Stanley, Kilpauk, GGH and Royapettah — have only eight qualified forensic medicine experts while they receive 7,300 bodies.

A third of the bodies are of unknown victims. In the GGH, which performs around 2,500 autopsies a year, the number is higher. Until recently, the Kilpauk Medical College, which performs 2,500 autopsies a year, had only one doctor for the purpose.

MCI norms

A government doctor says what is required is a reappraisal of the whole system of post-mortem.

Under Medical Council of India norms, every medical college with 100 students should have two professors and assistant professors besides tutors. Ideally, every medical student should be trained to perform autopsy. Besides providing research material, it gives valuable information about the cause of death, say specialists.

Temperature

Morgues must maintain four degree Celsius temperature. But, the city's morgues maintain 10-15 degrees. This depends on regular power supply and the condition of compressors. Often, for want of space, bodies are piled up in freezers. The result: they decompose and cause problems during autopsy.

Though the State passed a decade ago an order allowing for autopsies at night, poor infrastructure, including insufficient lighting, makes it impossible to perform them, say experts. They cite Modi's Medical Jurisprudence and Toxicology, a book used as a guide by forensic medicine experts, to say that autopsies should be performed only in daylight.

Colour changes

According to Modi, certain colour changes in the tissues help to establish the cause of death. Also a bruise can be produced as part of established post-mortem artefacts, and it has to be distinguished from the bruise sustained during life. Colour matching is more accurate in natural light than in artificial light.

Poor payment is another deterrent. A doctor is paid Rs. 75 for autopsy, whereas Karnataka pays Rs. 250 for daytime autopsies and Rs. 500 for those performed at night.

P.K. Devadas, head, Department of Forensic Sciences, Bangalore Medical College, says: "Modi's guidelines are outdated. Artificial lighting is so good these days that colour changes can be distinguished as well as in daylight."

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