KARACHI, July 28: The Jinnah Postgraduate Medical Centre mortuary is in a state of utter neglect and disregard owing to lack of attention by the Sindh Medical University, with whom it is affiliated.

The medico-legal officers work here without proper equipment, such as drills, gloves, forceps or rib shears, to perform autopsies. There is room for performing only one post-mortem at a time in a room lit by a couple of tube lights.

The only basin across the examination hall is covered by a thick layer of dirt, as if it has not been used for a long time, and the few furniture pieces available are broken.

Often the mortuary, which receives at least five medico-legal cases daily, also goes without water for two consecutive days.

Usually the bodies stay here for up to six hours for medico-legal formalities before they are either taken away by families or are sent to the Edhi morgue. Thought the room itself is spacious, the only means of cooling it are two ceiling fans which serve little purpose in the sizzling summer. Hence bodies cannot be kept here for long because there are no means to keep them cool to prevent their deterioration.

Since the mortuary is affiliated with the SMU, water and electricity connections are connected to the university’s supply line which is also responsible for its maintenance.

Additional police surgeon at the JPMC Jalil Qadir said that he had written several times to the SMU vice chancellor for setting up an independent water line. He said the vice chancellor had agreed, but did nothing.

When Dawn contacted SMU vice chancellor Tariq Rafi, he said water shortage was a persistent problem in the area and the university, too, was often affected by it. He said water shortage at the university meant there would be shortage at the mortuary also.Mortuaries are usually affiliated with colleges for teaching purposes and used by the medico-legal section of affiliated hospitals.

“The time for teaching students there by demonstration is long gone because of the volatile law and order situation. But the mortuary is still used every day,” he said referring to the working of the medico-legal section at the JPMC.

However, Mr Rafi said the building had become old and the university was mulling over building a new one. “Besides, mobs attacks are frequent and they wreck everything in their sight.”

“How can they build a new mortuary when they do not even give us detergents to wash the existing area and chairs to sit on?” was the indignant response by Mr Qadir when he heard about the plan to build a new mortuary.

Meanwhile, Dawn gathered that the mortuaries at the other two hospitals fared better than at the JPMC.

Civil hospital’s mortuary has the space for conducting two post-mortems/autopsies simultaneously and a storage capacity of about 10 bodies, but still no air-conditioning. Autopsy cases are often referred here by medico-legal officials at the JPMC since they work without the required equipment.

“We have water and tools but they often get stolen or broken during mob attacks,” said a woman MLO working at the Civil hospital. “So we prefer to keep our tools with us.”

However, at present the mortuary is undergoing renovations, said chief MLO Karrar Abbasi. “We had written to the Dow university for carrying out repairs and increasing the number of examination tables so we could conduct about five post-mortems/autopsies at a time,” he said. “Renovation is under way.”

The mortuary at the Abbasi Shaheed Hospital, affiliated with the Karachi Dental and Medical College, is the best equipped among the three. “We have space for conducting four to five post-mortems at a time and a cold storage facility for up to 40 bodies,” said senior MLO Mohammad Saleem.

In 2012, a total of 12,704 medico-legal cases came to the JPMC as compared to the Civil and Abbasi Shaheed hospitals which received 6,797 and 10,235 cases, respectively.

Moreover, 1,476 post-mortems/autopsies were conducted at the JPMC as compared to the Civil and Abbasi Shaheed hospitals, where the figure were 830 and 1,050, respectively.

Though water supply to the mortuary resumed on Tuesday, the state of the facility prompts questions about the quality of forensic evidence gathered in such conditions and the SMU authorities’ attitude.