There are no less than 28 posts of medico-legal officers (MLOs) lying vacant in different government hospitals in Karachi. There were total 71 sanctioned posts in the medical-legal departments of major hospitals of the mega city and 28 of them, including those of both senior male and female MLOs and junior MLOs had been vacant for quite some time, a health department official told APP Sunday. He said the situation was affecting the needed work in a cosmopolitan like Karachi exposed to one or the other untoward situation such as accidents, abductions, crimes etc.
To a question, he said as per government policy there had to be four women and six male MLOs in every tertiary care hospital. "It is lack of interest among the doctors themselves in assuming responsibilities at medico-legal departments that has added to the misery of the patients concerned, victims of untoward incidents and their respective families," he said.
To another query, he said non-availability of women MLOs had become a major problem leaving many of the cases unattended as people in general were reluctant to get their female family member undergo the process conducted by a male doctor. "Shortage of women MLOs has denied many of the women exposed to unnatural death of their right to justice closely linked to postmortem," the official said.
This, he said, was also affecting timely and crucial process of required examination needed by surviving victims. Reiterating that vast majority of doctors were not interested in the job, the official attributed the situation to security condition, political pressure, complicated legal procedure, poor allowances and nepotism.