DEATHS BLOW..
»Fatalities last year climb 43% on pre-pandemic »Coroner says there is debate if virus was key
THE number of deaths reported to coroners last year were up 43% on pre-covid-19 levels with almost 7,600 additional mortalities.
Figures from the Department of Justice show 25,421 fatalities were notified to the country’s 38 coroners during 2021 compared to 17,822 in 2019.
There was also a noticeable increase in the number of deaths in 2020 which were up 32% on 2019 levels to 23,465.
The official number of Covid-19 deaths in Ireland as published by the HSE was 7,087 up to the end of last month.
While there is no breakdown on the cause of deaths, Covid-19 is a notifiable disease under the Infectious Diseases (Amendment) Regulations 2020 and any deaths due wholly or partly to a notifiable disease must be reported to a coroner.
However, fatalities from the infection are considered natural deaths and do not necessarily require a postmortem.
Kildare County Coroner, Prof Denis Cusack said there is “a very legitimate debate going on” about whether Covid-19 was a direct or contributory cause of death in many cases.
He pointed out that a similar issue about pneumonia, which is one of the most common causes of death, has never arisen even though many people who die from it have underlying health conditions.
Prof Cusack added: “I think we’ve got to treat Covid the exact same way. Would they not have died at that time but for Covid.”
Guidelines from the Coroner Service require confirmed, suspected and possible Covid-19 related deaths to be reported to the coroner in every case so early decisions could be made regarding death notification forms, postmortems and any investigation process as well as on the release of bodies.
The latest figures show the number of reported cases which did not require a postmortem increased from 12,098 in 2019 to 18,746 last year – a 55% increase
INCREASES
The number of deaths that resulted in the holding of an inquest, however, decreased by 6% over the same period – down to 2,101 in 2021 from 2,225 two years earlier.
The largest increases in deaths reported to a coroner compared to pre-covid-19 levels were in Carlow and Waterford where the number of cases almost doubled.
In Waterford, 639 cases were reported compared to 327 in 2019 – an increase of 95% over the period.
A similar percentage increase was recorded in Carlow where the number of deaths notified to the coroner went from 80 to 156 between 2019 and last year. In Dublin, the number of cases reported to the coroner was up 75% over the same period to 9,261 – an increase of almost 4,000.
Prof Cusack said the information on death certificates is based on clinical information provided by a deceased’s attending doctor.
He added he believed people were “missing the message” that the direct cause of death is attributed to whatever was regarded as the main cause at the time of death, even with underlying causes.
Prof Cusack’s report found all but two of 230 Covid-19 deaths in Co Kildare in the first 12 months of the crisis involved people with underlying conditions.
But he said it was very difficult to assess if those with underlying medical conditions might have died if they had not contracted Covid-19.