Daily Times

LAHORE: Despite being ready for use, the newly established mortuary facility at the Lahore General Hospital (LGH) was yet to be functional even after passage of one year, as the Specialised Healthcare and Medical Education (SHE&ME) Department had still not allocated police stations to LGH, it was learnt on Monday.

Well-placed sources in LGH told Daily Times that a modern mortuary with all necessary facilities, including two autopsy labs, medico-legal clinic, X-Ray and ultrasound room, histopathology lab, biological lab, forensic anatomy lab, and cold storage room for preservation of dead bodies, were constructed in the premises of LGH by the provincial government at an estimated cost of Rs 52.5 million.

He said currently there were two such facilities available for 10 million people of Lahore, one in Mayo Hospital and other in Jinnah Hospital, which often remained overloaded with patients. In order to ease the burden of these hospitals, the government decided to establish a new mortuary house at LGH, sources informed. After one year of its completion, they deplored, this dead house unit was not functional due to misplaced priorities of the provincial government.

LGH was 1,000-bedded hospital with largest neurological facility in the country. The hospital’s emergency ward provided medical services to more than 2,000 patients daily, besides admitting 5,000 patients per month in its 33 wards for treatment of different diseases.

Sources said that more than 800 patients die each month in the hospital due to different diseases, mostly related to neurological complications, adding that there was a dire need to establish a state-of-the-art mortuary house to provide cold storage for preservation of dead bodies along with autopsy for medico-legal procedures. They said that at this time, there was no place in the hospital to keep the dead bodies, adding that working of the newly built morgue was of utmost importance to meet future requirements.

They further said all necessary equipments, worth million of rupees, were installed in the newly constructed dead house, while the hospital administration also recruited doctors, 43 paramedics and supporting staff for this purpose. Due to non-functionality of the mortuary, designated employees were performing general duties in the hospital, he added.

Prior to this, the Primary and Secondary Healthcare Department along with the SHE&ME Department could not settle the jurisdiction issue to allocate police stations to the newly-established forensic department, they disclosed, adding that the mortuary had been lying dysfunctional for the last one year.

The LGH management had written to the concerned authorities some six months regarding allocation of 17 police stations to the institute, so that the third largest post-mortem facility in the city could be made functional, they revealed, adding that after receiving the request, a high level committee of experts constituted by the SHE&ME Department examined the case and accorded the approval to allocate 17 police stations to LGH. However, the department seemed reluctant to issue official notification for allocation of police stations.