KARACHI - Jinnah Postgraduate and Medical Centre (JPMC) is suffering severe shortage of medico-legal officers (MLOs) that forced an MLO of JPMC to perform 15 post-mortem of the martyrs of Karachi Airport attack, The Nation has learnt.
There are only three MLOs working at JPMC; one performs 12 hours long duty, which shows that how the hospital managing shortage of MLOs.
A source in the health department told The Nation that as many as 26 positions of 17 and 18 grades for MLOs are vacant for the last many years but the department is unconcerned towards the issue.
Sindh Health Minister Dr Saghir Ahmed and Health Secretary Iqbal Durrani have been informed several times about this dire situation but they do not pay any attention towards the problem.
The said shortage of MLOs was started when Dr Manzoor Ahmed Memon, a leading MLO, was brutally murdered in Karachi last month. Three major public hospitals of the city,
JPMC, Civil Hospital and Abbasi Shaheed Hospital are mainly facing the shortage of MLOs. In addition, many doctors have gone on vacations after the killing of an MLO.
The said shortage was highly felt when the victims of Karachi Airport Attack were taken to the city’s leading hospital, JPMC, where only one MLO, Dr Jugdaish, was available on duty.
The paucity of the MLOs forced him to do 15 post-mortems of the victims.