Forensic medicine has big role in protecting rights, says Justice Kurup

Thiruvananthapuram: Justice K. Narayana Kurup on Friday said every practitioner of forensic medicine has a pivotal role to play and a solemn duty to perform to protect human rights especially when dealing with cases of custodial torture and killing.

He was delivering a lecture on Human Rights, Medical Errors, Forensics and Courts, at the 15th Annual Conference of South India Medico- Legal Association organised by the Department of Forensic Medicine, Medical College, Trivandrum.

“No violation of any of the human rights has been the subject of so many Conventions and Declarations as ‘torture’- all aiming at total banning of it in all forms, but in spite of commitments made to eliminate torture, the fact remains that torture is more widespread now than ever before.,” he said.

Justice Kurup said ‘Custodial torture’ is a naked violation of human dignity and degradation which destroys to a very large extent the individual personality. It is a calculated assault on human dignity and whenever human dignity is wounded, civilization takes a step backward- flag of humanity must on each occasion fly half- mast, he said.

On medical errors, he said the correct approach was to 'redesign systems'; so that errors are acknowledged on the fundamental premise that humans are fallible and errors cannot be ruled out altogether. “As a first step, reporting of errors and 'near misses' should be encouraged to help identify the causes of error. But today's culture of blame, shame, punishment and peer condemnation are clear shackles which stand in the way of medical error reporting,” he said.

Justice Kurup said this situation needs to change. Reporting will occur only if doctors feel safe doing so and it becomes an accepted practice within the medical community. Until the society embraces such a culture, errors will remain forever buried under the soil without being identified and rectified.