Izharul Hassan Chaudhri.
Fatal case documentation in a logistic area.
Pak Armed Forces Med J Jan ;54(2):249-52.

Fatal Case Documents (FCDs) are bills of mortality raised in military hospitals to record the circumstances of death for scrutiny by higher military medical authorities. A study was carried out at Headquarters of Karachi Logistic Area to find time taken in preparation and processing of these documents and in it all FCDs received in the last quarter of 2002 were included, which were 25 in number. Male to female ratio was 2.5:1. Ages varied from 1 day to 80 years (mean 50.69 days, SD+ 19.12 years). Employment-wise 8 were serving soldiers (32%), 1 serving civilian (4%). 4 military pensioners (16%), 7 military dependents (28%) and 5 non-entitled civilians (20%). The study revealed that FCDs of pensionary cases on the average took 218 days (range 160-300 days) for finalization whereas non-pensionary cases were finalized in 119 days (range 63-209 days). The time consumed by `medical activities` (a blanket term including autopsy, histopathological reporting, chemical examination of the viscera and recording of death summary by the specialists) on the average was 29 days (range 22-207 days) in surgical cases and 98 days (range 42-147 days) in medical cases; and time taken by the hospital ministerial staff averaged at 65 days (range 21-402 days). Another important finding was that the hospital and the unit together took on the average 98 days (range 6-348 days) in completing injury / `disease` report, containing formation and (or) unit commander`s opinion about attribution of death to military service. Finalization times were largely in excess of the time span considered de rigueur (60 days for the serving deceased and 30 days for others).

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