As the law stated, Post mortems were always conducted before sunset. Any cases that received special permission from the court were allowed to be carried out in the night.
It is believed that bruises and injuries on a dead body are visible better in natural light. The time lag often created hassles in organ harvesting of a possible organ donor.
The Centre has now allowed Post mortems to be conducted in the night in hospitals with adequate infrastructure. This is applicable to all the cases except homicide, suicide, rape, suspected foul play and decomposed bodies.
The health ministry said that “In response to multiple references received by union Health ministry from various sources and in line with the government’s Commitment to promote ease of living by reducing burden imposed due to compliance to government processes, changes have been made in post mortem protocols to allow for the procedure to be conducted after sunset effective from today”
This would provide ease to the family of the deceased and also be beneficial for organ harvesting. Several representations have been made in this regard and these were examined by The Directorate of Health Services which eventually led to this decision.
The protocol has mentioned that the post mortem procedures meant for organ harvesting should be done on a priority and all such procedures done in the night should be video graphed.
