KARACHI: The provincial metropolis has been facing a shortage of female medico-legal officers (MLOs) as only five are working in public hospitals of the city, Bol News reported on Thursday.

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There are 30 vacancies for female MLOs in designated hospitals of Karachi, but only five female MLOs are working to handle the emergency cases. Meanwhile. the shortage has also increased the burden of work on male MLOs in the public hospitals

As per Bol News report, two women MLOs are posted at Abbasi Shaheed Hospital and two at Jinnah Postgraduate Medical Centre (JPMC), while only one works at the Karachi Civil Hospital.

Usually, Bol News report continued, it has been learnt that postmortem on bodies of women is not conducted at night in the city’s hospitals.

Karachi is a city of more than 7.8 million women, and the fact that it needs more female MLOs also to minimise the burden on male MLOs is alarming.

The number of posts of lady MLOs has not been increased for years, but the crime ratio against women has increased manifold.

In cases related to sexual abuse, violence, deaths due to shootings, bomb blasts or traffic accidents, victims women do not undergo medico-legal formalities anymore, added the Bol report.

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The postmortem of a minor girl who died in an exchange of fire between a security guard and robbers in Shah Latif Town area of Karachi yesterday could also not be conducted last night. 

The family of the victim girl had no other option but to keep her body in JPMC’s morgue.