HARASSMENT AFTER DEATH

HARASSMENT AFTER DEATH:
This one is written by a doctor & hospital authority who feels helpless at times after the death of a young person due to road accident or suicide.
Imagine a case of RTA (road traffic accident) ,where the victim is a young student from an engineering college, after staying for a couple of weeks in a hospital for head injury and multiple bone fractures dies at 15hours.As per rule the police has to be informed, as all RTA cases are medico legal.The doctor or the authority can not hand over the body to the relative or party with out police permission.
Some miscreants now take advantage of the situation and try to earn few bucks or tarnish the image of the hospital. News papers give head lines as “doctor did not release dead body due to non payment” to gain public sympathy, but seldom they cross check with the police why the body was not released. With money being every thing in this world the hospital authority are also to be blamed for their giddy attitude and at times behaving like a mafia.
An out dated rule still exists in India for the common man (not for VIPs or Politicians), that postmortem can not be conducted after sun set. Hence police does not come to take the body and the authority can not release the body, here the situation becomes explosive at times. Every body thinks the body is not released due to non payment which is not a fact. Even if the dues have been cleared the authority can hand over the body to police only not the relatives. They go on breaking the hospital property, cause harassment to other patients and create an ugly scene in front of the hospital; police does not come in time to take control of the situation unless that hospital is in good book of police.
Next day police may appear after10am (if there is no cricket match or VIP visit) and take the body to the postmortem center at party’s cost. There the doctor and his or her helper (usually a drunkard)has to be paid some fixed amount or else there may be further delay last but not the least the doctor will not mention the cause of death(reserve after organ analysis reports) further delay in insurance claim.
This is a common occurrence in all big or small cities and is a very important issue but yet to be solved. When a game of cricket can be played at the middle of night why can’t postmortem be done at any time of the day? Why a particular doctor? Why not all be trained to do postmortem examination by the government. If surgery can be done by mobile advice and audio visual methods why not postmortem?
1: All suicide cases who survive should not be a victim of police. No medico legal case for attempted suicide- as the rule exists in some states of India, why can’t it be uniform?
2: Let postmortem be done at any time of the day or night.
3: The dead Body to be released as soon as possible to the police.
4: Let the postmortem cost be legal and a receipt should be given for insurance claim and reimbursable.
5: Let there be NGO body to take care of all these formality and hand over the ashes to the bereaved family the next day.
6: Let there be transparency in every stage.
As more than few lakhs people die in India due to accidents at home and outside (medico legal) this problem should be sorted out sooner than later..
By Dr.sanjoy Kumar Satpathy