Hospicio suffers body blow with no specialists to conduct post mortems

If your loved one passes away in circumstances that need to a post mortem on their bodies, it won’t happen at the Hospicio morgue. 

Believe it or not, the largest and overburdened hospital in South Goa has just one doctor, with virtually no attendants or technicians in the morgue, to conduct post mortems and other procedures.

The condition has worsened to such an extent that the forensic department staff, facing the brunt of this shortage, has refused to carry out post mortem procedures due to overburdening and absence of appropriate staff. 

The Hospicio Hospital is the only Government facility of medical services in the whole of South Goa and has a jurisdiction of 16 police stations. These police stations include the entire South Goa stations and also the two railway police stations. On an average there are 2 or 3 bodies per day for post mortem. These bodies are taken into the post mortem room and the procedure is done by the doctor on duty which takes hours for execution. Postmortems have to be conducted by a Medico legal Officer of the hospital so that they depose before courts as and when required. Surprisingly, the work of a Medico Legal Officer is being done by the Medical Officer at Hospicio, and these conditions have been there for years. The morgue attendants, who are the logistical staff, have been reportedly doing the work of a morgue technician of stitching, tagging the dead bodies and also sealing viscera/specimens. 

Sadly, for Hospicio there has been only one doctor for the Forensic Department for the almost one year and there is no appropriate staff to work at the morgue and the forensic department. In a bizarre move the Medical Superintendent had moved all the three Post Mortem attendants to the TB Hospital morgue when the morgue and the forensic department needed the staff the most. Dr Svitlana Gomes of the Forensic department said, “The post mortem attendants have conveyed their inability to work at the department since December 1st which has forced us to send all the bodies to the GMC for post mortem”. 

According to the sources at the Hospicio the situation has prevailed for the past year.  After the Medico Legal Officer Dr Avinash Pujari retired from the services in April, the matters have worsened. 

Herald learnt that North Goa has 10 to 12 Medical Officers and Medico Legal Officers at the Morgue and equal number of Attendants and Technicians at the Morgue. All this for 11 police stations in North Goa against the 16 police stations in the South with only one doctor. 

The Forensic Department, with only one Medical Officer, has handled over 210 cases since the retirement of the Doctor Avinash Pujari in April 2016. This is being done reportedly by requesting the Attendants do assist with some clerical works and at the same time help with the Technical work of labeling, stitching and other works before and after the autopsy.

And old circular by the Health Secretary of Goa has already mandated to have Medical Officers, Medico Legal Officers, Post-Mortem Attendants, Post Mortem Technicians, and also clerks for the official works of the Forensic Department. Surprisingly Hospicio has been forced to abandon the circular with Forensic wing of the Hospital. 

When contacted the Medical Superintendent Dr Ira Almeida said, “The Medical Officer has refused to do the post mortems demanding the filling of the vacancy after the retirement of the Dr Avinash Pujari. We have written to the Director of Health Services and they will be taking action on this situation soon.” 

“Dr Svitlana, who had been doing the autopsy under the supervision of Dr Pujari, is alone now and has asked for technicians to assist her at the morgue and this has been referred to the Director of health services,” Dr Ira added.

The medical superintendent is, however, in denial mode on the issue of lack of staff and has also said that presently there are two morgue attendants at the Hospicio and one at the TB Hospital mortuary. 

The staff of the Hospicio has revealed that recently there have been several incidents of problems, arguments and fights at the Hospicio over the Post mortem and delay in handing over of the body. Will the Director of Health Services intervene and solve the problem before the situation gets out of hand, is the question the staff and the people are asking now.