A Taranaki funeral director fears bereaved families could end up with huge bills if a loved one requires a post mortem.
When necessary post mortems will now be carried out in Palmerston North or Hamilton instead of Taranaki District Health Board. Photo: 123rf
As part of a national review of coronial support services the Ministry of Justice is not re-newing its contract for mortuary services with the Taranaki District Health Board.
It says that when necessary post mortems will now be carried out in Palmerston North or Hamilton.
It is about a 500km round trip to Hamilton from New Plymouth and it is just a shade shorter to Palmerston North and back - a return journey of about six-and-a-half hours.
Kelly Judkins of Hardings Funeral Services in Hawera said she empathised with iwi who had expressed their dismay at the outsourcing of post mortem services.
She said it would cause delays and make it more expensive for all families who wanted to stay close to the deceased.
"There might be motel costs. There will definitely be food costs. And all of that associated expenditure when supporting their deceased person through that last journey."
Ms Judkins said it was also unclear who would pick up the tab for the hearse, its mileage and the driver.
A 25-year veteran of business, she said the move had upset funeral directors across the board.
"You come into this position or this job 150 percent for the families. We don't come into it for the money, we come into it for job satisfaction and it's going to be a harder thing to achieve in far more difficult circumstances, I think."
Funeral Directors Association president Gary Taylor said the ongoing review of coronial services was taking a toll on families.
"You have to ask yourself whether the decisions being taken are being taken with the families in mind or whether they are being taken from a financial point of view. And if you looked at the decisions taken recently they don't appear to have the family in mind."
Mr Taylor said the review seemed to fly in the face of the Coroners (Access to Body of Dead Person) Amendment Bill which was currently going through the select committee process.
It recommended giving families more timely access to their loved ones.
"It certainly seems to have cross party support, but now if you're going to put a six-plus-hour journey in between, then I think that it doesn't quite live up to the idea of giving families as much access to the deceased as possible."
The Tairāwhiti District Health Board stopped performing autopsies about 10 years ago and they were also outsourced to Palmerston North.
Tairāwhiti DHB chief executive Jim Green said it was not ideal, but the DHB was not able to sustain the service.
"We've got a very small team here and we didn't actually have a person available to do the post mortems and have the volume to keep up to date and being able to contribute to the overall way in which the post mortems were being done. So it came to an end here and we had to move on to a different arrangement."
In a statement, the Ministry of Justice spokesperson said its objective was to provide services as close to the place of death as was practicable, but it was limited by the network of suitable facilities and the availability of pathologists.
"In recent times the coronial services system has needed to respond to a decline in the number of accredited facilities and changes in the pathology workforce."
The only region other than Taranaki likely to be impacted by the current review was Invercargill, which the spokesperson said faced challenges providing an accredited facility and local pathologists.
The ministry covered the costs for transporting the tūpāpaku, but it did not cover those of family members who wished to accompany the body.
It ensured local viewing facilities were available and it aimed to minimise the time a body was away from family, the spokesperson said.
The ministry said the review was not part of a cost-cutting programme.
"As part of Budget 2018, an additional $7 million in funding has been granted for the coronial support services. This will go a long way to covering the true cost of the services, that have not had an increase in funding for a number of years," the spokesperson said.