Association seeks additional posts in DMS institutions to complete entries for medico-legal cases

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The mandatory same-day uploading of Medico-Legal Cases (MLCs) on the Medico Legal Examination and Post Mortem Reporting (MedLEaPR) portal is difficult for doctors working 24-hour shifts in government hospitals under the Directorate of Medical and Rural Health Services (DMS) as they already have to manage heavy clinical and emergency workloads, according to the Service Doctors and Post Graduates Association (SDPGA).

The association has sought sanctioning of additional doctor posts in the DMS and creation of posts for physician assistants or data entry operators to help assist doctors complete these medico-legal entries.

The Health department had earlier instructed doctors to prepare and submit medico-legal and postmortem reports through MedLEaPR immediately. If the portal was not functioning, a typed report was to be issued immediately and uploaded as soon as possible, but within 24 hours. Reports were also to be frozen on completion of the postmortem.

SDPGA president P. Saminathan, in a statement, said doctors had been instructed to upload MLC details in the Inter-Operable Criminal Justice System and Crime and Criminal Tracking Network and Systems (CCTNS) portal on the day of examination.

The workload for these duty doctors at government hospitals (district headquarters hospitals, taluk and non-taluk hospitals and Comprehensive Emergency Obstetric and Newborn Care centres) under the DMS should be taken into consideration, he said.

In a DMS hospital, a doctor on a 24-hour duty has to conduct a postmortem, record details on a sheet and subsequently enter them on the portal, which could take about two hours. Doctors must also enter details of MLCs, including road traffic accidents, poisoning and assault cases in the Accident Registry (AR) and online systems.

Each entry could take about 20 minutes. For instance, he said in one hospital, there are nearly 25 AR entries per day. Doctors must simultaneously examine and treat these patients, besides attending to at least 100 non-emergency outpatients in casualty.

It was nearly impossible for duty doctors to manage these entries along with their clinical responsibilities, Dr. Saminathan said and sought posting casualty medical officers in shifts at DMS institutions to address the workload.

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