Indore
A man fell at a doctor's feet in the District Hospital pleading with him to perform an autopsy on the body of his relative, who had died in a road accident. However, the doctor refused, saying that his duty hours were over.
It was only after the intervention of senior officials that the autopsy was performed.
The video of the incident, showing the man pleading with the doctor to perform the autopsy and the doctor's blunt refusal went viral on social media, eliciting comments against the medical fraternity and their alleged heartlessness.
Rau police said that a youth, identified as Sarthak Thakur (18), who was on a motorcycle was run over by a dumper on CAT Road on Sunday afternoon. He was rushed to a hospital, but died.
Police said the incident took place at 1.30 pm, but they received information at around 3.30 pm. A police team reached the hospital and sent the body for postmortem at the District Hospital.
When the body was taken to the postmortem centre of the Indore District Hospital, Dr Bharat Bajpai, who was on duty was going home as his duty hours were over. The deceased’s family members requested him to conduct the autopsy, so that they could perform his last rite. However, Dr Bajpai refused and went away.
By Sunday evening the matter reached the senior officials of the district who intervened and instructed Dr Bajpai to do the autopsy. Dr Bajpai came back and performed the autopsy and handed over the body to the family members at 8 pm.
ADM's permission needed
Dr Santosh Verma, Civil Surgeon said that as per the instructions of the administration, during holidays autopsy can be done only from 11 am to 4 pm. If autopsy is done after that, it causes legal issues when the matter is produced in the court. The ADM's permission is necessary to do the autopsy after the stipulated time on holidays. The family managed to get the ADM’s permission after which postmortem examination was done by Dr Bajpai and the body was handed over to the family members. He added that to avoid such matters again in the future, instructions have been issued to duty doctors to do postmortem till 6 pm on holidays.
