“There is urgent need to improve medico legal services in the state in the interest of speedy and clean justice for the people of Punjab. One Stop Crisis Centre (OSCC) for women is required to be established in all medical colleges in Punjab. The State Medico Legal Manual for guidelines in examination of medico legal injury and postmortem cases is required to be drafted by involvement of senior forensic medicine experts. For training of medical officers working in the field dealing with medico legal cases, medico legal training modules should be prepared with training to be given by forensic medicine departments in medical colleges. To create awareness on air pollution in medical students, the curriculum of MBBS should include special chapter on environmental toxicology with special seminars and medical education programmes in medical colleges. The State Chemical Laboratory presently situated in Kharar is overburdened and should be trifurcated into three regional chemical laboratories at Patiala, Amritsar and Faridkot to speed up viscera examination of poisoning cases sent for chemical analysis and reduce pendency in public interest with assistance from forensic medicine departments in state run medical colleges. The post of State Medico Legal Advisor should be revived with creation of more posts to assist the state government in criminal cases and the Department of Health and Family Welfare should work in coordination with forensic medicine faculty in medical colleges”.
These resolutions were passed in the first executive body meeting of Punjab Academy of Forensic Medicine & Toxicology (PAFMAT), state body of forensic medicine specialist doctors) chaired by its President Dr DS Bhullar in Government Medical College Chandigarh (on Saturday late evening). According to the forensic experts, at present more than 80 percent medico legal work in the state is within the domain medical officers working in the field, and with proper training and regular update, they can contribute a lot in improving the medico legal services as the state does not have sufficient forensic medicine experts in government service who can better manage these services. Forensic medicine specialists are mainly posted in state medical colleges and can only tolerate a limited load of the medico legal work and there is also need to appoint more forensic medicine specialists in the state run hospitals.
