Chennai: The Madras High Court has suggested to the state government to explore the feasibility of permitting private medical college hospitals to perform autopsies on unidentified bodies, which will relieve the congestion in the mortuaries in government hospitals.
A division bench comprising Justices S. Rajeswaran and P.N. Prakash gave the suggestion while issuing a set of directions to the authorities relating to man missing cases and unidentified bodies.
Citing an order of the Karnataka government relating to conducting of post mortem, the bench said, “Due to paucity of post-mortem doctors in government hospitals, post-mortem on unidentified bodies is not done immediately and preference is given only to murder cases, accident cases and in cases where the body is identified. In our opinion, a solution to this problem can be found, if private medical college hospitals in the state are given permission to conduct post-mortem as done in the state of Karnataka”.
In Tamil Nadu, there are 19 government medical colleges and 26 private medical colleges, of which 11 are deemed universities.
Currently, the students of these private medical colleges were sent to the government medical college hospitals for getting training in autopsy, the bench pointed out.
If the government grants permission to these private medical colleges to perform autopsies on unidentified bodies, it will relieve the congestion in the mortuaries in the government hospitals.
