Call to change funeral restrictions
Invercargill deputy mayor Toni Biddle is preparing a petition in a bid to change the rules in place for funerals under Covid-19 alert level 2.
It was announced on Monday that New Zealand would move to level 2 tomorrow but funeral services would remain limited to 10 people.
Biddle, who had been working on the petition on her own accord, had concerns that families were unable to grieve in their own homes under level two restrictions. It didn’t make sense that 100 people could gather in a cinema or restaurant but families who had been grieving were excluded from the same right, Biddle said.
There were ways in which families and funeral directors could have mitigated the risk, but they weren’t given the opportunity to do so, she said.
The petition had been sent to parliament’s petition page and, once it had been approved, Biddle would share the petition to be signed.
A Ministry of Health spokesperson said the 10 person limit was temporary measure and would be reviewed in two weeks’ time. The ministry were regularly updating their guidelines and would be issuing guidelines for level 1 in coming weeks, the spokesperson said.
Invercargill resident Shelley Henderson was disappointed with the announcement as they were preparing to have a funeral for up to 100 people for her grandmother that died on Saturday.
Henderson understood times were tough and hard decisions had to be made and could accept the situation if people weren’t able to play rugby or have up to 99 other people inside a restaurant. ‘‘There’s just no consistency.’’ Otatara residents Jodi Conway and Mike Conway had also sent a submission to parliament about the blanket policy that restricted families from seeing dying relatives, even if they did not have Covid-19.
Despite their mum testing negative for Covid-19 before she died from a stroke, they had to visit her behind a glass wall and had to get discretion from the Southern District Health Board for the visit, Jodi said.
What hurt the most was that it took away the right for their mum’s mokopuna (grandchildren) to properly grieve, she said.
They had to have a cremation instead of a tangi which was a decision they shouldn’t have to make, he said.
As Ma¯ ori ‘‘it goes against everything we’ve been brought up with and had instilled in us,’’ he said.