Goa Medical College: Suspended HOD Forensic Medicine applies for anticipatory bail

Panaji: Caught in a controversy after his department, mistakenly dumped the body of a 24-year-old man, instead of an unclaimed body of a 45 year old deceased, the Head of the Department of Forensic medicine at Goa Medical College, Dr Edmundo Rodrigues, has now filed an application for anticipatory bail plea.

The move came after the doctor was quizzed by the Crime Branch on the issue. As per recent media reports,the crime branch had called the HoD for a long investigation after which the anticipatory bail was applied.

Medical Dialogues earlier reported that body of a 24-year-old man, Januz Gonsalves , resident of Aldona, Bardez, in North Goa was handed over to CCP for disposal by the Forensic Medicine Department of Goa Medical College and Hospital (GMC) instead of unclaimed body of a 45 year-old-man.

Read also: Goa Medical College wrongly disposes off body of 24-yr-old man, HOD faces Suspension

With the mistake drawing a lot of flak from the media and the general public, Health Minister Vishwajit Rane announced that he had ordered the suspension of three persons involved in the entire goof up. Health minister has assured justice to the Gonsalves family.

" Instructions have been given to Health Secretary Ashok Kumar to suspend Dr Edmundo J Rodrigues, Professor and Head, Department of Forensic Medicine, Goa Medical College, Dr Machindra Zalmi, Junior Technician, Prakash Narvekar, post-mortem attendant, both from Department of Forensic Medicine, GMC. This lapse cannot be excused and in future if action is required, we will take,” he had stated.

Dr Pradeep G Naik, Dean, Goa medical college, in his report submitted to the Health Minister confirmed the lapse of verification by the department , ”It has been observed that there has been a very serious lapse from the part of the officials in handing over the body without proper verification.”

”It was brought to my notice at around 11.40 am on 29-09-2018 (Saturday) by the Department of Forensic Medicine that dead body of Januz Gonsalves was handed over to the CCP authorities inadvertently instead of the dead body of Vishant Naik (45) for disposal,” Dr Naik confirmed the report.

An official informed TOI about the visits done to the department by the health secretary and that the statements of Rodrigues, Narvekar, Jalmi, and others involved in this fiasco, will be recorded.