PESHAWAR: The Khyber Pakhtunkhwa health department has decided to task the forensic medicine and toxicology departments of the public sector`s medical colleges with carrying out medicolegal work in their respective hospitals with a view to conduct investigation in criminal cases along scientific lines and ensure dispensation of justice to the people at local levels.

According to the officials concerned, the government hospitals of the province don`t have the services of qualified experts by and large and thus, leading to the compilation of faulty reports in cases on murder,physical attacks, sexual assaults and age determination.

Since such reports are of no use, they cause criminals to evade convictions.

The officials said in every government hospital of the province, medico-legal cases were tackled by casualty medical officers, who were primarily responsible to examine critically-ill or injured patients.

They said casualty medical officers neither had time for such cases nor were they trained in forensic medicines.

The officials said the government had decided to turn the forensic departments of government medical colleges in the province into centres of excellence and use their services for medico-legal work in regional hospitals.

On Sept 5, the provincial health secretary wrote to the principals of Peshawar`s Khyber Medical College and Khyber Girls Medical College, Swat`s Saidu Medical College,Mardan`s Bacha Khan Medical College, Bannu Medical College, Kohat Medical College, Abbottabad`s Ayub Teaching Hospital and Dera Ismail Khan`s Gomal Medical College to update it within a fortnight on the strengthening of forensic services in their respective institutions.

The letter came after the KMC floated a proposal in June this that the forensic medicine departments, which existed in all government colleges of the province, be used to help and enforce the law for the dispensation of justice both in civil and criminal cases in their respective areas. The college established in 1954 had begun a full-scale forensic medicine and toxicology department in 1990.

The department is responsible for exhumation of bodies and other medico-legal examinations throughout the province.

Besides, it also offers training in forensic medicine to undergraduateand postgraduate students from all over the country.

Likewise, the analytical toxicology and serology laboratory of the college provides its services not only to the police and hospitals in the province but also to the armed forces of the country.

The KMC urged the health department to upgrade other forensic medicine centres in the province not only to lessen burden on it but also to provide better healthcare services to the people on their doorstep.

It said every division of the province had a medical college, where the department of forensic medicine could easily be converted into a centre of forensic medicine on the pattern of the KMC, which had all desired facilities for autopsies and other examinations.

The KMC insisted it would offer its services to help upgrade the centres by free training to the staff.

It suggested that the government hand over medico-legal work in allhospitals in divisions to the relevant medical colleges.

The relevant officials insisted the government wanted to develop separate cadre of medico-legal officers to perform medico-legal work only.

They said such officers would refer difficult cases to the relevant medical colleges for opinion.

`These MLC officers will be under the control of the medical colleges concerned, where they will be trained and sent back to their post, an official said, adding that the move would help ensure dispensation of timely justice in medico-legal cases to the people.

The official said the government wanted to upgrade forensic departments and ensure justice through solid scientific evidence in criminal cases throughout the province.

`The government doesn`t want to allocate special funds for the purpose as trained human resource already exists in each college,` he said.