Black eye for the medical profession
posted in - Ethics, - Nation, - Palmdoc |
Imagine the consternation in the public mind regarding the conflicting autopsy reports on Kugan who died whilst in Police custody. There were so many differences that it’s no surprise that Kugan’s mother has lodged a report
After discovering vast discrepancies in the two post-mortem reports, the family of dead detainee A Kugan did the next sensible thing – lodge a police report and hope to see justice done.
This morning, M Indra did just that. She lodged a police report against Serdang Hospital and the pathologist who conducted the first post-mortem on her son’s body.
Accompanying her to the Petaling Jaya police district headquarters to lodge the report were her lawyer, two MPs and several family members.
Dr Abdul Karim Tajudin of Serdang Hospital performed the first post-mortem while Dr Prashant N Samberkar of Universiti Malaya Medical Centre conducted the second one. The Prashant post-mortem report was submitted to the Attorney-General’s Chambers by Indra on Thursday.
Here’s the summary of the differences (source: Malaysiakini)
Some reactions in the blogosphere:
Zorro unmasked says First the judiciary, now our doctors too?
Doc talks about Black sheep
When there are glaring difference like this, one of the reports is obviously not telling the truth. Now that the ball is in the AG’s court, justice will take it’s course.
Doctors in the course of their work need to be objective and impartial, more so forensic pathologists and coroners. Doctors cannot produce reports just to suit political masters or their own agenda. We must be brave and stand our ground. A doctor of Burmese origin showed us exactly how to do that even though it means coming under extreme pressure.
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March 7th, 2009 at 11:32 am
‘Doctors cannot produce reports just to suit political masters or their own agenda. We must be brave and stand our ground. A doctor of Burmese origin showed us exactly how to do that even though it means coming under extreme pressure.’
I presume that ‘be brave and stand our ground’ mean findings in favour of your political opinion. So in latter case, the Burmese doctors MUST be right and the gov specialist’s findings MUST be wrong even though you don’t know what’s thier findings. The presumption is made purely based on your political opinion.
I think it is unfair for you to link this case to the sodomy case. First of all, nobody actually seen the report by general hospital. The findings never been made public unlike in Kugan’s case. It is premature for you to judge that the gov doctors had been wrong in their findings. Again don’t let your hatred towards BN cloud your judgement. Please support it with facts. What the Burmese doctor found is normal findings. The doctor only report what they see. Whether there is a crime or not is decided by the court not by doctor.
I agree with you that doctors cannot produce reports just to suit political masters or their own agenda. Opinion should be given based on case by case basis.
What i’m afraid of is the Serdang doctor will be made a scapegoat by the police and gov if indeed he was pressured to give his ‘biased’ report. Also I wound like to hear Dr Prashant’s or any other expert opinion on the 1st post mortem report. What he had done maybe a substandard postmortem / reporting but doesn’t mean his findings are not true.
The Serdang doctor can be charged negliegence but not criminal charge as in any other medical negligence.
March 7th, 2009 at 2:51 pm
No one is insinuating Burmese doctos must always be right nor Government doctors mist always be wrong. Both forensic pathologists are after all working in Government institutions, albeit Dr Prashant in a University.
The black eye here is the public perception that one of the pathologists has not performed as expected of a professional. Who’s right or wrong? I guess we have to leave it to the authorities to decide.
We can only hope and pray the real truth emerges.
March 7th, 2009 at 3:26 pm
“When there are glaring difference like this, one of the reports is obviously not telling the truth. Now that the ball is in the AG’s court, justice will take it’s course. Doctors cannot produce reports just to suit political masters or their own agenda. We must be brave and stand our ground. ”
Well done for taking this neutral stand in the above statement.
If we question whether the first pathologist succumb to political pressure, we at the same time have to question the political inclination of the second pathologist. Sad to see that there is no trust in the system.
March 8th, 2009 at 6:31 am
we should spread a campaign to call for the public to refrain from doing any assumption about the police and the forensic team.
when the public ASSUME, they are simply making an *SS out of U and ME.
http://www.wretch.cc/blog/pilocarpine/15137755
March 8th, 2009 at 9:33 am
This is definitely a racial issue propagated by politicians.
http://www.nst.com.my/Current_News/NST/Sunday/National/2499160/Article/index_html
5 vietnamese killed by the police. Only ONE pistol found. I am waiting for those MPs to bring up this case in the parliament.
March 9th, 2009 at 5:58 am
Poor doctor, the Vietnamese armed robbers and death in custody does not have much similarity.
Pilocarpine… the silent majority is NOT assuming
Just the noisy few…