Abstract

Introduction: There is an increasing rate of mortality and morbidity amongst the medicolegal cases in India. Knowledge of these cases is necessary to initiate a medico-legal case, treat such cases and further disposal in hospital. It is also needed to implement changes in the law and safety at work, home and roads. The saim of the study was to determine the epidemiological profile of medico-legal cases reported to Tertiary Centre in West Bengal during the study period and to study the epidemiological profile of different medico-legal cases in the hospital. Methodology: This study is a retrospective hospital based observational study which was conducted in the casualty of tertiary hospital in Eastern India from November 2018 to January 2021. It is a tertiary care centres with referrals from in and around the state. Results: In our study we saw a decreasing trend of Medico-legal cases as the years passed by. A male preponderance of the cases (60%) compared to females. The ratio of males: Female was 1.5:1. 57% of our Medico-legal cases were road traffic accident and 18% were fall from height and found dead cases respectively. 36% (505) cases were in the 31- 40 years age group followed closely by the 41-50 years age group 30% (421). This was followed by 51-60 years (11%) and 21-30 years and 61-70 years (10% each). Conclusion: The aim of raising a Medico-legal case is to inform the police and application of medical knowledge in practice. The attending doctor needs to tackle the case with medical bent of mind and describe the alleged circumstances in simple language and describe relevant findings.

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