MARGAO: In 2022, 93 people ended their lives by hanging in South Goa district, according to forensics experts at the South Goa District Hospital, where 559 autopsies were conducted last year.
The worrisome statistic translates to eight people taking the drastic step in South Goa each month, and this only accounts for one method of suicide. Police sources said that a significant number of the hanging victims were migrant workers and tourists as well.
The Department of Forensic Medicine and Toxicology at the public hospital also recorded 73 sudden death cases, 57 vehicular accident (MVA) cases, 35 railway related deaths, 34 drowning deaths, eight Covid-related deaths and two poisoning cases in the past year.
Speaking to reporters, Dr Madhu S Ghodirekar, Associate professor of forensic medicine said that the morgue complex has a capacity to store 72 bodies and is capable of conducting three autopsies
simultaneously.
The mortuary complex began functioning during the Covid crisis.
“The first body was preserved on September 23, 2020, following the second wave of Covid-19. Facilities for post-mortem examination were acquired by the end of November 2020, and full-fledged post mortem procedures were shifted from the old Hospicio hospital to the new department complex in December 2021,”said Dr Ghodirekar.
He said that besides post-mortem and clinical forensic examination, examination of victims and accused persons, weapons examinations and DNA sample collection for all police stations in South district are conducted at the complex. “In 2022, 60 clinical examinations and 1,236 bodies were preserved in the morgue, of which 556 were medico legal cases, 398 were non medico legal bodies and 282 were preserved on
private request,” said Dr Ghodirekar.
