Lack of forensic experts, need to increase threefold to fulfil country’s requirement

SHAH ALAM - The ratio of forensic medical experts to the country’s current population are insufficient and it needs to increase threefold to meet the country's requirement.

Forensic Pathology Subspecialties National Specialist Register Committee Chairman Datuk Dr Zahari Noor said the increase in the number of expert was important to meet the needs of the country at the time.

“We look at United States for example, the country has a ratio of 3.7 forensic pathologists per one million population who carry out an average of 222 post-mortem cases per year.

“In Malaysia, the ratio at the time is about 1.2 specialists per million Malaysians which showed that the country may need three times the number, which is 135 people compared to the existing 45 forensic experts serving in the Health Ministry and local universities.

“At the moment, not all post-mortem and death investigations are carried out by forensic medical experts but government medical officers serving in hospitals are also involved due to the lack of specialists,” he said.

Dr Zahari, who is also the Malaysian Association of Medicine and Forensic Sciences chairman said that based on research, a forensic medical expert should conduct an autopsy between 200 and 250 cases a year.

However, there were different requirements for the number of cases by state in Malaysia and it was estimated that on average 400 post-mortem cases were carried out in a year such as in Kelantan and Terengganu.

“There are states that perform more than 1,500 post mortem cases a year such as Selangor and Kuala Lumpur.

“Selangor has a high population density and three Forensic Departments namely Serdang, Klang and Sungai Buloh Hospital carry out approximately 1,600 to 2000 post-mortem cases a year.

“Of course the lack of specialists in forensic medicine will have an impact on the quality of death investigations and post-mortem conducted locally,” he said.

He added that to overcome the issue, more training opportunities were offered such as master’s course in forensic pathology at Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia (UKM), Universiti Malaya (UM) and recently Universiti Teknologi Mara (UiTM)’s faculty of medicine.

In fact, he said there was a Parallel Pathway Program that trained medical officers in the forensic field of the country and from the United Kingdom for the Diploma in Medical Jurisprudence (Forensic Pathology) that the National Specialist Register recognised.

Meanwhile, Universiti Sains Malaysia (USM) Forensic Science Programme chairman urged the government to create more forensic science expert positions to enable graduates of local universities to fill the existing needs.

To date, it was estimated that 1,900 forensic science graduated from three public universities namely USM, UiTM and UKM.

However, only 60 to 80 per cent of graduates successfully placed themselves in the profession even though the country required more forensic science experts.