List drug abuse as one of the cause for death: Punjab health minister

Punjab health minister Brahm Mohindra plans to urge the Union government to include drug abuse or overdose as one of the causes of death in the proforma for issuing death certificates, which lists 38 causes of death, but has no mention of drug addiction.

The standard format, issued by the Centre, is used to gather information and collect data from all the districts in the country on an annual basis by the health departments of every state. The format is decided and issued by the Centre and the states cannot change it on their own.

“I am going to write to the Union health minister, JP Nadda to include drugs as one of the causes of death in the proforma for issuing the death certificates,” Mohindra told TOI.


“Till date, we do not have any mechanism to ascertain whether a death has been caused due to drugs since there is no such option in the death certificate,” he added.

Mohindra reiterated that as per the state health department only two deaths in the last year were due to drug abuse. He added that the health department had not compiled any other data about drug deaths. “Had there been such a data confirming drug deaths with the state government, there was no need to send the viscera in several death cases for testing,” he said.

Asked how much time it would take for the viscera reports to be issued by the state forensic laboratory, Mohindra said there is a huge pendency of samples in the laboratory, but he has asked them to speed up the examination of viscera in suspected drug deaths. “Otherwise,” the health minister added, “every villager knows which youth is taking drugs in the village and who might have died due to drugs.”

On the issue of compulsory dope test for male government employees, the health minister said detailed guidelines would be issued very soon along with standard operating procedure. If any employee contests positive result after the dope test, they will be given a retest as there is no availability of a confirmatory test in India, he added. “You know, there is no confirmatory test in India. People have to go to America for such a test. I have checked with our doctors and they told me there is no forensic laboratory in India having facility to conduct such confirmatory test,” he explained.

There are 81 Outpatient Opioid Assisted Treatment (OOAT) clinics across Punjab and the health minister claimed due to awareness, these OOAT centres have been witnessing an increased footfall in the recent past.