KARACHI: Female attendants not available at mortuaries
By S. Raza Hassan
KARACHI, Oct 3: In absence of women mortuary attendant, the post-mortem of female bodies is carried out by male mortuary attendants in all the three public sector hospitals of the city.
In 1994, the Supreme Court of Pakistan had issued a judgment barring the male medico-legal officer from conducting autopsy examination of the female victims. Subsequently, women medico-legal officers (WMLO’s) were appointed by the Sindh Health Department to overcome the crisis. Earlier, there was no concept of WMLO in the medico-legal sections.
However, the health department failed to hire and train female mortuary attendants ignoring the fact that mortuary attendants are the one who actually handle the bodies brought to the hospital for autopsy and MLOs only give their observations after examination.
Despite repeated directives from the judiciary, the post-mortem examination still solely depends on mortuary attendant. If a body needs to be cut up for the post-mortem it cannot be done without the mortuary attendant. Though the attendant works on the directives of the MLO, but the officers are often reluctant to touch the body. This practice prevails in all the three public sector hospitals of the city where medico-legal sections are operational.
Though WMLOs in all the three government hospitals remain on call during the night, they hardly turn up. Often the case is returned if examination is required and in the case of a post-mortem the body is shifted to the Edhi morgue so that it could be brought back for the autopsy examination next morning.
”In fact, the health department is facing a shortage of women medico-legal officers. If even one of them goes on leave it creates problems,” said a senior official of the health department.
Often relatives react sharply if they come to learn about the role of the mortuary attendant during the autopsy procedure.
The mortuary attendants, hired in grade one, retire in the same grade with a very nominal pay. “We don’t have any service structure through which they could get some benefits,” complained a senior mortuary attendant.
On Jan 9, 1997, the tribunal investigating the murder of Mir Murtaza Bhutto asked the then Sindh Health Secretary to ensure that all the post-mortem examinations conducted at the three hospitals should be performed by the doctors and not by the attendants.
The tribunal comprising Justice Nasir Aslam Zahid, Justice Amanullah Abbasi and Justice Dr Ghous Muhammad had observed that in all other countries except India the post-mortem examinations were carried out by the doctors themselves. They said that this practice should also be followed in our hospitals.
The tribunal had asked the then health secretary to assign some officials to remain present at the mortuary and observe whether the entire autopsies were done by the doctors.
