(UTV|COLOMBO) – The Health Ministry and International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) signed a Letter of Agreement to provide better medico legal services in the country.
The project will implement a minimum quality assurance program at the Institute of Forensic Medicine and Toxicology (IFMT) to improve mortuary operations by standardizing and centralizing procedures and training non-medical staff to manage forensic data and human remains more efficiently.
The IFMT will be the reference mortuary. Chief JMO and Head of the IFMT Dr. Ajith Tennakoon and the ICRC jointly developed the pilot project on Minimum Quality Assurance to be implemented at the IFMT in 2016.
The Head of Delegation of the ICRC Gerard Peytrignet speaking at the signing said the core humanitarian mission of the ICRC, mainly carried out in situations of armed conflict and others situations of violence, or in their aftermath, is to provide protection and assistance to those affected by such circumstances.
This has led to the ICRC gradually developing specific capacities related with the search, recovery and identification of bodies and human remains, with a strictly humanitarian approach, to provide responses to bereaved families and allow them to properly engage in their mourning processes. The ICRC is mainly supporting the authorities rather than directly engaging in such operations. This will not only improve Sri Lanka’s medico- legal system but it also contribute to a more humanitarian, public health and preventive approach to manage and identify the dead during natural disasters, catastrophes, migration and post conflict situations.
“Our work should not be bound by laws alone, but should reach beyond that” Chief JMO DR Ajith Tennakoon said. “It should also have a humanitarian perceptive and what we practice here is humanitarian forensics,” he said.
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