Funeral limits increased
GOVERNMENT restrictions on funerals have eased this week after a “heartbreaking” few months for families and staff organising services.
As of Tuesday, 100 people are now allowed at indoor and outdoor funeral services, while social distancing and hygiene measures remain in place.
Wakes are still capped at 20 people.
For Australian Heritage Funerals manager Judith McGrath-Colquhoun, the easing of restrictions comes as a relief.
“When you could only have 10 or 20 people at a funeral, as we had up until recently, it was difficult for people to choose who could come and who couldn’t,” Ms McGrath-Colquhoun said.
“Throughout time we have always celebrated people’s lives at funerals and for families not to be able to do that in the way they wanted has been quite traumatic.
“It’s lovely now that we can have bigger gatherings with more people there to say farewell – it’s a great thing and we’re delighted.”.
During the height of the restrictions, Australian Heritage Funerals implemented a number of creative measures to ease the emotional impact on families.
“We have been live streaming funerals, we’ve had grandchildren send in videos to be collated, we’ve done balloons with messages and roses with people’s names on them when they couldn’t attend,” Ms McGrath-Colquhoun said.
“We were doing some of these things before in a minor way, and now we will continue some of them into the future.”
Ms McGrath-Colquhoun said the service’s onsite chapel could seat 50 people in line with distancing requirements, and bigger services would either utilise the outdoor space or be organised at a larger venue.