Studies showing alarming rate of deaths due to heart attacks are not accurate. This is because the doctors might have failed to diagnose the correct cause of death. In view of this, the office of the chief registrar of births and deaths and directorate of economics & statistics (DES) has organised a training workshop on cause of death medical certification.
HE Rajashekarappa, chief registrar, DES, said that the physicians attending to the deceased are not recording the cause of death in the medical certificate.
As a result, the medical codifier (record keeper) finds it difficult to ascertain the cause of death.
The training will help medical practitioners and record keepers maintain the quality of data entered. Important demographic indicators like infant mortality rates, child mortality rates, and maternal mortality rates can be computed from this information. The information will be beneficial for health planners, administrators, policy makers, and researchers, he said.
As many as 50 doctors attended the workshop. Dr PK Devdas, professor and HOD of forensic medicine, Bangalore Medical College, educated the medical fraternity about the importance of the training. Doctors, while filling the form, should write legibly, because nobody usually understands their handwriting. This should not be the case, he said.
Details about the cause of death serve many purposes. They help in assessing the public health programmes and provide a feedback for future policies and their implementation.
They are essential for better health planning and management and for deciding priorities of health and medical research programmes.
At present, the mortality statistics are being sent from 1,214 urban hospitals in the state. About 1,971 hospitals, both private and government included, provide the recorded data.
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