What happened?
According to The Forensic Department of Khyber Medical College University’s new proposal, a set of charges has been laid out for its forensic services. The proposed plan suggests that the medical examination of sexual assault victims will now cost Rs25,000 and the charges for autopsy will be Rs5,000 for the local residents of Peshawar.
What you should know
Furthermore, the charges for keeping dead bodies in cold storage will be Rs1500 per 24 hours. For DNA testing Rs18,000 fixed charges have been suggested. The decision was taken in a meeting of the Management Committee held on February 14 in which 17 new charges were approved. “We provide forensic facilities to the law enforcement agencies, courts and other departments which include autopsy, medico-legal examination, age estimation, toxicology, and DNA analysis,” an official of the department told The Express Tribune, adding that the decision to introduce 17 new charges was taken to meet the operational expenditures of the Forensic Department. “For the district Peshawar autopsy cases the department will charge Rs5,000 per case while for the cases referred from other districts the charges will be Rs25,000 per postmortem,” he said, adding that for kinship and paternity test Rs20,000 fee has been proposed. “For drug abuse analysis Rs3,000 charges have to be paid. Urine tests and alcohol analyses will cost Rs2,000. Test for poison detection to cost Rs4,000 while freezer charges for dead bodies will be Rs1,500 per 24 hours,” he informed this correspondent.
When will the proposal be implemented?
The Express Tribune contacted Dean Khyber Medical College University Dr. Mehmood Aurangzeb, who maintained that the introduction of 17 new charges for forensic services was just a proposal discussed in the BoG meeting. “The most difficult medical procedure is autopsy as doctors are obliged to go to courts for their opinion. They even face threats from the affected parties”, he said. He said it was just an initial proposal and will only be implemented once the government gives the go-ahead.