Brought dead cases at a tertiary care hospital in Ahmedabad with reference to dispensing with the need of medico legal post-mortem examination: Provisions, Protocol & Procedure

Abstract

Brought dead cases are of concern not only clinically with regards to medical certification of cause of death, but also medico legally.  Generally, brought dead cases are considered as medico legal, which in fact need not be always. Need has arisen to study the  provisions and practice of handling brought dead cases with respect to whether medico legal post-mortem is required for all such  cases or not. A retrospective, cross-sectional, observational study was carried out by examining case files, police papers and post mortem reports of brought declared dead cases (n=62) received at a tertiary care hospital in Ahmedabad with the objective being to  observe the epidemiology of brought dead cases and to review the provisions and practice of handling brought dead cases, as well as,  medico legal post-mortem examination (Under S. 174 Cr.P.C.) for such cases. Majority cases belonged to more than 50 years of age  with a history of previous/current major illness. Hence, ascertaining the cause of death became quite obvious after excluding common  unnatural causes. Only 23.72% cases were subjected to autopsy. In some cases police denied permission for performing the autopsy. A  protocol to handle brought dead cases is suggested which might require some reforms in relevant law(s) and state resolutions. The  centers with high load of autopsies of brought dead cases from natural manner should carry out such a study to decide whether really  medico legal autopsy is required in such cases or not and to request the state authorities to amend the provisions accordingly.