Minister Of Home Affairs Wilfred Abrahams has issued a strong call for reform of the process for pronouncing and certifying deaths, warning that the system is inflicting unnecessary trauma on grieving families.
During a debate yesterday in the House of Assembly on a resolution to lease 9 810.8 square metres of land to the Barbados Association for Cancer Advocacy (BACA)for the construction of a hospice, Abrahams shifted the discussion to what he described as an “inhumane and archaic” policy: the restriction of death pronouncements to a limited number of medical professionals.
“In this country, if someone passes away at home, families can be forced to wait for hours – sometimes the better part of a day – before someone qualified arrives to officially declare what everyone already knows: that their loved one has died,” the minister said.
“It is torture. And it needs to stop.”
Abrahams recounted the distressing experience of constituents who discovered a family member dead in a car outside their home. Though the police permitted the family to switch off the engine, they were instructed not to touch the body.
“They called me at nine in the morning. By one o’clock, no one had arrived. It wasn’t until three in the afternoon that a doctor came to pronounce the death,” he said.
“What exactly are we asking people to endure? That’s not administration. That’s cruelty.”
The minister criticised the narrow designation of only a handful of doctors authorised to confirm death, despite the fact that many others are capable of determining whether someone has passed.
“I did first aid training. We were taught to check for a pulse, to hold a mirror under the nostrils. Any basic medical professional can tell when someone is no longer alive,” he said.
Abrahams called for legislative reform to expand the number of qualified professionals authorised to make pronouncements of death. He also suggested that appropriate post-certification procedures could be implemented to ensure administrative integrity, without delaying the acknowledgment of death.
“Let’s keep the processes we need. But don’t let bureaucracy hold people hostage in the worst moment of their lives.”
