Mangaluru: An association of social activists by the name “Namma Mangaluru” has recently exposed two hospitals in the city that charge highly irrational fees for medico-legal post mortem examinations.
They are said to have met the Police commissioner and have received assurance and support from him in this regard.
According to Namma Mangaluru, two private medical college hospitals (Fr.Muller Medical College and AJ Institute of Medical Sciences) are collecting upto Rs 3000 for postmortems at their cash counter. Whether it is legal or not, they make it sound legitimate by giving receipts for the payment.
Confusing terminologies such as “dead body handling charges” is said to be used even when relatives have requested them to “handle the dead body”. There is a difference of charges that are collected for postmortems at night (upto Rs 3000) as compared to postmortems in the daytime (upto Rs 2500), the report said.
“If a person dies due to unnatural causes, his postmortem is done as per law (without consent). Postmortems are conducted at these private hospitals because of their own request to the government. Postmortems are ordered either by the police or by the magistrate appointed by government. Public are cooperating well with process of postmortem”, reported the group of social activists.
It is a relatively new phenomenon of collecting exorbitant money from relatives of the deceased during postmortem examination at these two centers. The remaining centers for postmortem examination (Government Wenlock Hospital, KS Hegde Medical Academy and Yenepoya Medical College Hospital) do not collect fees like this, they reported.
Since the police officers are present at the mortuary when the payments are made, public are unaware of injustice happening to them at that point of time.
“Since there is a clear discrimination between people dying in these hospitals and rest of the hospitals in the Mangaluru city there requires to be action by the authorities concerned”, Namma Mangaluru activists demanded and raised a question as to whether or not it seemed to be a case of illegal and unethical collection of fees.
This issue is the fourth public interest issue taken up by team Namma Mangaluru. They call it Yojane.
Yojane No 1 & 2 are said to have been successful under the leadership of Walter Menezes and Joseph martis respectively. Yojane No 3 is in progress under the leadership of Mr.Rajendra Kumar.
The current Yojane is being fought under the leadership of Dr.Deepak D’Souza. He is also known to have exposed the water meter tampering racket in Mangaluru city corporation earlier.
Team Namma Mangaluru is confident of its victory and has strategic plans for getting justice. They are presently utilising Facebook and twitter for publicity and contacts.
