Issuing of a Death Certificate took over six months

It took over six months for the father of a young person who died suddenly at home to have a formal Certificate of Death issued by the appropriate authorities, according to a report in the Ombudsman’s Case Notes for 2018.

The case emerged from the Ombudsman’s Case Notes 2018 report, which was tabled in Parliament on Wednesday.

According to the report, after a series of letters to various highranking people, the parent resorted to the Office of the Ombudsman for help, and the Ombudsman went on to refer the case to the Commissioner for Health for investigation.

Documents presented with the complained showed that following the death of his son, the authorities only issued a provisional Certificate of Death. The reason given to the parents was that since a magisterial enquiry was underway, blood samples were sent by the court expert abroad and the results were still not available.

This meant that a formal Certificate of Death could not be issued.

Employees of Mater Dei Hospital assured the parents that this process would not take long, and in spite of this, it transpired that the blood samples had not even been sent for analysis.

It was discovered, through enquiries made by the Commissioner of Health, that samples would be taken abroad by hand twice a year whenever the Court expert needed something analyzed, and since the person concerned had died very soon after a batch of samples had been taken to the UK, this and other cases were left in limbo.

It was noted that without a death certificate the parents could not register the death of their son with the Public Registry, and consequently could not perform any other administrative procedures related to the death of a person.

This delay reportedly added further anxiety to the parents’ grief.

A courier, whose services are available every day, was regularly used by Mater Dei Hospital and the Commissioner for Health queried with the Court authorities why such samples were not sent the same way.

In their reply, the Court authorities said that the matter would be taken up between the inquiring Magistrate, and with the Court Administration.

The Court expert when on to inform the Commissioner that a local qualified person who can perform the necessary tests was found, after it transpired that after a Toxicologist who used to perform these tests locally retired, no on was available to fill in his post.

The Commissioner also noted that it was wrong that the parents of the deceased were told that the samples were sent for examination when in fact they had not been sent.

Following the intervention of the Commissioner for Health, and the fact that the results of the blood tests became available, the Certificate of Death was subsequently issued.