So Many People, So Few Autopsies

Staff shortages and lack of equipment in India's government hospitals mean quick and dirty autopsies for the dead. According to one doctor I had the chance to speak with there are only two forensics departments worth their salt in the city--and none of them are fully functional. The building is run down by American standards--there are blood and betel stains on the walls and mason jars full of viscera in the corners of the doctor's office--but the hospital has one of the few working cold storage units in town--making it a popular destination for bodies that have uncertain causes of death. While I had come to follow up a lead on the death certificate for the one eyed child, we had little time to discuss details of the case as the doctor was headed out to conduct his second post-mortem of the morning. I did, however, have the chance to see lockers jam packed with the recently deceased, and a gurney carrying someone's unidentified remains to their final resting place.

According to The Hindu, the four government hospitals in the city responsible for 7,300 autopsies a year only have 8 board certified doctors. And while doctors can be obliged with conducting several in a day, the pay is poor, coming to just 75 rupees per procedure, or about $2.

"We do not have the tools, nor are we given enough time to do a good job. What we do is just butchery," says an anonymous expert cited in the article in the Hindu. And this is true. Several months ago when I was present at one such procedure the doctor used little more than a hammer, a knife and a saw.