Polyclinic MLO working without requisite qualification, expertise

Islamabad : In a departure from the accepted standards of practice, the Polyclinic, the federal capital’s largest government hospital after PIMS, has long been tasking one medical officer after another with handling the legal cases that require medical expertise to aid the police’s investigation although the requirements of the surgical job include special qualification, skills, and work experience.

As ad-hocism plagues the medico-legal department, the hospital officials insist that they’re not to blame as their repeated formal requests to the national health services ministry, which oversees the 550-bed facility, to appoint experts to the two vacant posts fell on deaf ears.

They told ‘The News’ that the department had two sanctioned positions, including those of surgeon emergency/medico-legal (BPS-19) and associate medico-legal surgeon (BPS-18), but only a medical officer having no relevant qualification or expertise currently deals with the cases brought in by the police due to legal implications, including those of unnatural deaths or injuries, sexual assault, and poisoning.

Working on a provisional basis, he was posted to the department lately after the removal of his predecessor, also a temp, for delaying the post-mortem examination of a local teenage girl, who was killed after being raped.

The officials said since the recruitment rules prescribed the filling of both medico-legal department vacancies on a permanent basis through the Federal Public Service Commission, an autonomous organisation tasked with recruiting employees for federal government departments for the posts of BPS-16 and above, the hospital referred the matter to the health services ministry few years ago for action, but the latter kept sitting on it.

They said the FPSC later ordered the revisiting of the recruitment rules for medical posts in line with the PMDC regulations and the order was complied with as the Establishment Division notified the amended rules in 2018.

The officials said after putting up verbal requests many times, the hospital formally asked the health ministry in June 2018 for filling the medico-legal department vacancies by posting surgeons of other hospitals with the relevant skills and experience either on a deputation or detailment basis until permanent recruitment through the FPSC, but even that communication was ignored.

They said the hospital even informed the ministry that the medical doctor acting as the MLO didn’t possess the requisite qualification.

The officials said under the law, only the government hospitals and that, too, the authorised ones can carry out post-mortem on the bodies of those, who die an unnatural death in mishaps or ways where police suspect foul play.

They said the opinion of medico-legal officers about unnatural deaths and sexual assaults formed the basis of action against culprits, so any recklessness either intentional or unintentional in that respect left justice compromised.

“As the registration of police FIR (first information report) and further action in medico-legal cases mainly depends on what the medico-legal report suggests, the handling of such cases by unqualified and inexperienced doctors can ruin the whole process and thus, denying justice to the victims of criminal offences,” an official insisted.

He said even if the ministry was unwilling to fill those vacancies for one reason or the other, the hospital's top boss could address the issue for the time being by posting one or two surgeons to the medico-legal department.

Special assistant to the premier on health Dr. Zafar Mirza didn’t answer this correspondent’s phone.