IGMH secures land from Hulhumale’ to launch postmortem services in Maldives

The main state hospital has been allocated land from Hulhumale’ to launch postmortem services in the Maldives.

Ibrahim Abdul Razzaq Haleem, the CEO of the Male’ City Group of Hospitals, confirmed to Sun on Monday that the Indhira Gandhi Memorial Hospital (IGMH) has been allocated a plot near the Hulhumale’ cemetery to establish a dedicated forensic medical unit in order to launch the service.

He said that the hospital was currently drawing the blueprint.

The Maldives currently sends bodies overseas for postmortems in suspicious or custodial deaths.

Health Minister Geela Ali told the Parliament back in July that it costs MVR 55,000 to get it done even in Trivandrum, India.

She said the 23 bodies were sent overseas for postmortems over the last decade, costing the state at least MVR 1.27 million.

She announced the government was working on establishing a Level 2 forensic medical unit for the first time in Maldivian history.

According to Geela, the unit will be tasked with:

• Examining the body to identify cause of death in court-ordered cases, and conducting examinations in cases involving sexual or physical assault.
• Conducting forensic examinations in cases involving torture or abuse of prison inmates or detainees.
• Examinations to determine extent of injuries for court cases and insurance claims.

But Geela stressed that the launch of the service requires a lot of preparations, including establishing resources and formulating forensic pathology regulations.