HYDERABAD, Dec 11: Many government-run hospitals in Hyderabad district have to make do without medico-legal officers (MLOs) for a long time conducting autopsies often under unhealthy conditions at mortuaries with outdated equipment.

Sources said that hospitals in Bhittai, Paretabad and Liaquat University Hospital (LUH) in Jamshoro and its city branches faced shortage of MLOs especially lady MLOs adding to the sufferings of relatives who required autopsy reports as a legal formality during trials.

Each hospital has a sanctioned strength of three MLOs, two senior MLOs and one lady MLO. Two seats of lady MLOs are vacant in civil hospital. In Jamshoro branch posts of a senior MLO, an MLO and a lady MLO are vacant; posts of lady MLO and two MLOs are vacant in Paretabad hospital; two posts of MLOs lie vacant in Bhittai hospital Latifabad.

Hospitals meet the MLOs shortage with internal adjustments of doctors.

Posts of lady MLO in LUH Jamshoro, Bhittai and Paretabad hospitals are vacant. Lady MLOs of other talukas or district hospitals refer rape cases to civil hospital as a routine and try as much as they can to avoid conducting examination, sources say.

The MLOs shortage delays routine work of medico-legal cases. If an MLO fails to turn up, the heirs of the deceased have to wait for hours to get an autopsy done and a medical certificate issued.

The unavailability of latest surgical accessories makes the matters worse during autopsy or handling of MLCs in case of a firearm injury or fatal road accident.

The MLOs have to jot down the nature of each injury for incorporation in medical certificate. Last year 3,649 MLCs were handled in civil hospital while this year until December 11, hospital received 3,361 cases. Likewise, the hospital conducted 266 post-mortems in 2005 and 223 autopsies till December 11, indicating the volume of workload.

The civil hospital mortuary, which receives maximum number of MLCs and bodies, has no x-ray facility. Technicians are often unavailable to x-ray an injured or dead body, said the hospital sources while the hospital's MS Dr Khalid Qureshi claimed that the medico-legal section had a potable x-ray machine. “Technicians refuse to do the job when they are asked to x-ray a decomposed body," a doctor said. The hospital’s mortuary, already short of helpers, has three sweepers for three shifts of eight hours each. If one of them takes the day off, it adds to problems for MLOs.

Sources said that doctors in dental ward were either loath to give their opinion on MLCs or avoid issuing certificate in case of injury of serious nature delaying issuance of medical certificates. "In a recent case of Husri police, police surgeon of Hyderabad had to inform the sessions judge in writing that the concerned dental surgeon was not giving his opinion thus delaying the issuance of medical certificate," said a source.

The mortuary’s cold-storage unit has outlived its utility. It develops faults at times and stops functioning. It is too short in case number of casualties increase during road accidents and has no shower on the table for bathing the bodies.

The MLOs have to use outdated instrument to open the skulls of dead bodies as doctors have no electric saw, sources disclose. "You cannot imagine the difficulties of an MLO, performing autopsy," said a doctor.

The civil hospital’s medico-legal section lacks thread gloves, needles, blades, stationery and formalin, which preserves viscera. The MLOs have to arrange the things from their own pocket. They do not get transport or daily allowance (TA/DA) when they travel to outstations for recording evidence or for exhumation of bodies, sources say.

A source said that the hospital had not received any budgetary allocations for three years making the conditions the doctors were working under worse.