No law for refusing death certificate in medico-legal cases : RTI

Times of India: Nagpur: Sunday, August 26, 2018.

There is no legal provision wherein doctors in Maharashtra are refusing issuance of death certificate with correct cause in medico-legal cases (MLCs) has no legal basis, an RTI query has informed. The reply was provided by the State Bureau of Health Intelligence and Vital Statistics to Dr Indrajit Khandekar, in-charge of India’s first clinical forensic medicine unit, at Sewagram’s Mahatma Gandhi Institute of Medical Sciences (MGIMS).

In MLCs, probe by the law enforcing agencies is must to fix responsibility regarding present condition of the patient, besides medical treatment. Such cases have both medical and legal implications and their registration is a must. According to Dr Khandekar, both the government and private doctors don’t mention exact cause of death in the certificate for patients who die while undergoing treatment under them.

Khandekar claimed that the doctors usually mention “cause of death to be decided after post-mortem” even in cases where the patient dies days after taking treatment. It included operative procedures where ample and justifiable medical evidence is there to certify the cause of death.

He had sought information under RTI from top hospitals like Delhi-based AIIMS and Chandigarh-based PGI, which revealed that they issue ‘medical certificate of cause of death’ even in medico-legal cases.

Citing Section 10 (3) of ‘Registration of Births and Deaths Act, 1969’, Dr Khandekar, who had filed a PIL on poor quality of forensic medical post-mortem services in the country, said it prescribes the procedure for issuing cause of death certificate. The section says, “In the event of the person’s death under medical practitioner’s supervision, the latter shall issue, without charging any fee, a certificate in the prescribed form stating to the best of his knowledge and belief, the exact cause of death.”

Explaining the problems that arise due to refusal by doctors to issue death certificates in MLCs, Dr Khandekar said the police then have to conduct the post-mortem, which unnecessary wastes time and money, and also causes anxiety among relatives till the report is out. “In the process, the mortuaries are turning into production line abattoirs. The law nowhere says that cause of death can’t be mentioned in the certificates issued in MLCs.”

Dr Khandekar, considered among top most forensic experts, has been requesting the state government to stop illegal practice of unnecessary autopsies since 2015.