Death records system criticised

Bodies are being removed from nursing homes, and in some cases buried, without the cause of death being formally established it has been alleged.

Mr David Fanagan, director of Fanagan's undertakers in Dublin and chairman of Age Action Ireland, said it meant some deaths were being recorded inaccurately and that deaths that may need further investigation were being attributed to "natural causes".

He said there were even cases where people were being buried without their cause of death being formally established or even registered.

It was happening "every day of the week, the length and breadth of the land", he said. Calling for the implementation of a report which recommends a radical overhaul of the law surrounding death, he said it was "a matter of time" before "laziness and bad practice lead to a death slipping through" that should have been investigated but wasn't.

If a body was removed from a nursing home, or anywhere, before being seen by the doctor issuing the medical certificate, an inaccurate cause of death may be recorded, he explained.

A medical certificate giving the cause of death must be issued before a death certificate can be obtained from the Registry of Births, Deaths and Marriages. Unless the body is examined where the person died, the true cause of death may be missed, says Mr Fanagan. "What happens if someone is indeed very frail and expected to die soon, but actually dies because the person in the next bed is fed up with their snoring and puts a pillow over their face?

"We have dealt with situations where the local GP will not go out to see the body before it is removed - whether because they are in the middle of surgery or it's three in the morning and they are confident the cause of death was natural." He said that while undertakers should refuse to remove a body until a doctor has seen it "some will remove it if asked to by the nursing home manager".

Dublin County Coroner, Dr Kieron Geraghty, is calling for the full implementation of the Report of the Coroners Rules Committee. He had come across numerous instances where bodies were being removed from nursing homes where they had not been seen by a doctor first.