For a city with 15mn population, there are only 3 medico-legal centres   

KARACHI: An internal report of Sindh government’s Medico-Legal Department has revealed that only 3 out of 9 medico-legal centres (MLC) are functional in Karachi, ARY News learnt on Monday. 

The report, due to be submitted to the provincial health department, reveals shocking figures about the state of medico-legal facilities in Karachi, a city with a population of 14.91mn according to the 2017 census.

According to the report, a copy of which is available with ARY News, the three medico-legal centres that are functional in Karachi include the one at Jinnah Postgraduate Medical Centre, at Civil Hospital and Abbasi Shaheed Hospital.

Meanwhile, the medico-legal centres at Karachi’s Sindh Government Lyari General Hospital, Sindh Government Hospital Liaquatabad, Sindh Government Hospital New Karachi and Sindh Government Hospital Korangi-5 are ‘non-functional’.

The centres at Sindh Government Hospital Saudabad and Sindh Government Hospital Orangi Town are categorised as ‘partially functional’ in the report.

Duties of the medico-legal section 

The medico-legal section works under medical jurisprudence law, and relevant medico-legal officers (MLOs) conduct autopsies and exhumations under the Pakistan Penal Code (PPC).

A medico-legal officer is required to examine and certify the people injured (or killed) in acts of violence and accidents before the treatment is administered or a death certificate is issued.

Certificates are issued based on different sections of the PPC, depending upon the nature of the injuries inflicted on the body.

No procedure to handle patients from outside Karachi 

The injured hailing from different parts of Sindh to Karachi for treatment are facing problems in obtaining MLO report, due to legal barriers, the report reads.

The report further reads that the injured/victims who come to major hospitals of Karachi from different districts of Sindh face ‘serious problems’ for medico-legal formalities and treatment because MLOs in Karachi have “no power to entertain medico-legal cases for treatment which come from outside Karachi’s jurisdiction.”

Another eye-opening observation by the report is that if an “injured is expired in the referred major hospital of the city during treatment, there’s no police system in Karachi and Hyderabad to prepare [a report under section] (174) PPP for the police inquest report properly, and there is no communications system for supply of information.”

Although the report points to section 174 of PPC, it is, in fact, section 174 of the Criminal Procedure Code Pakistan (CrPC) that says the police should inquire on cases of suicides, person being killed by another, or by an animal, or by machinery, or by an accident, or if he/she dies under circumstances that raise a reasonable suspicion that some other person has committed an offence.

Absence of medico-legal section in major hospitals

Going further, the report says that in major hospitals, there is no separate system for the Medico-Legal Department, which results in legal problems if the injured gets admitted, gets discharged after treatment, or expires during the treatment without the MLO’s knowledge.

It is worth mentioning that an unexplainable delay in lodging of a First Information Report (FIR) can result in the FIR being declared as invalid by the courts.

Moreover, the report observes there is no proper procedure for handing over the belongings of the injured or the deceased to the police.

The report reads that no database is maintained for the injured/corpse/unknown for admission and disposal, due to which relatives face a problem when they search for their injured or deceased relatives.

Rape victims suffer due to lack of medico-legal facilities 

According to report, there is a shortage of women MLOs (WMLOs) in the province, due to which fresh cases of rape, or injury to or death of a lady cannot be entertained and disposed within the proper time.

At the same time, there are no separate examination rooms for the WMLOs for them to examine rape victims in privacy, as directed by the law, which makes it difficult for them in case there are multiple cases lined up for examination. Male and female MLOs have to sit in the same room which, according to the report, creates hindrances.

Apart from that, the report says that the WMLOs have no lady assistants who could support them in examination and handling of the injured/victims.