Visakhapatnam: Police and relatives of victims in accidents will have to wait longer to get post-mortem reports in the coming days in Andhra Pradesh as the shortage of forensic experts has been increasing.
There are now few takers for post graduate specialisation in forensic sciences.
Dealing with dead bodies, lack of incentives and career prospects in private sector are the main factors deterring medicos from opting for forensic medicine.
Over 50 to 70 per cent of post graduate seats in the department of forensic medicine and toxicology in government medical colleges in the state have no takers.
In Andhra Pradesh, there are 12 government medical colleges, including the biggest Andhra Medical College in Vizag, where forensic experts conduct autopsy on bodies. But, the department of forensic and toxicology at Andhra Medial College and in other major colleges are on fragile footing as the existing forensic set up at hospitals is ill- equipped both in terms of infrastructure and manpower.
The shortage of manpower has caused delay in performance of post-mortem operations. In AP, there are 14 PG forensic medicine seats at government medical colleges, of which eight remained vacant in 2014, nine remained vacant in 2015. In 2016, there were only three takers.
Though forensic medicine is an interesting and challenging branch of medicine, new medicos are reluctant to specialise in it as most dislike dealing with dead bodies. Besides they don’t want to get involved with police cases (medico-legal cases).
“Staff crunch has been disturbing both academic classes and the post-mortem operations. We are overburdened and the situation will worsen in the coming days,’’ said in-charge HoD of Department of Forensics, AMC, Vizag, Dr V. Chandrasekhar. “We have to conduct post-mortem and also teach lessons at the medical college,’’ he added.
Sources said that on an average medical colleges in the state get at least 120 to 150 bodies for autopsy on a daily basis. Sometimes, the authorities of hospitals preserve the bodies for more than three days to conduct post-mortem due to shortage of staff.
Private medical colleges in neighbouring states of Kerala and Karnataka are allowed to conduct autopsies to reduce the burden on the professors of government medical colleges but, doctors in AP have to work in the government setup only.
At present forensic departments in medical colleges in the state are functioning with only 50 per cent staff and at least 100 forensic experts are required in the state to deal the increasing dead-bodies.
Director of Health and Medical Education of Andhra Pradesh (Academic), Dr K. Babji said that due to less opportunity for forensic experts in private sector, medicos are reluctant to opt for forensic specialisation. “We are chalking out plans to find out a solution to encourage the medicos in the forensic wing,’’ he added.
