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Bird flu may trigger ban on funerals
Traditional funeral services will be banned, the dead are unlikely to be cremated and body bags may replace caskets if a bird flu pandemic strikes.
Funeral directors will play a key role in controlling the spread of a pandemic if, or when, it happens.
The implications of bird flu will be discussed as part of the 69th annual conference of the Funeral Directors Association of New Zealand, which was opened by MP Eric Roy at a formal dinner in Invercargill last night.
Association president John Duncan said representatives from 40 of the association's 100 member companies attending the conference would take part in an educational session to prepare funeral service personnel for a pandemic. The session would be the first of many held throughout the country, he said.
Mr Duncan said funeral directors were preparing based on a "worst-case scenario" , which would see them inundated with dead bodies.
"In little over a month we could carry out our annual average work-load."
The association's pandemic planning committee chairman Simon Manning said measures adopted by the funeral industry to curb the spread of pandemic would fly in the face of traditional customs.
A Government directive banning public gatherings would see all funerals banned.
Bodies would not be transported between districts and burials would take place as soon as possible after death, he said.
"Our goal is to have each person buried within 48 hours."
Lack of people to build coffins could see them replaced with heavy plastic body bags and cremations would cease.
Mr Manning said one reason was the possible interruption of gas supplies to crematoria coupled with difficulty, given a high death toll and absentee rate from work, in obtaining appropriate, signed medical referee authority for cremation.
Two doctors are required to sign before a cremation can take place, one after death and before the family signs consent, followed by another doctor.
While the virus responsible for the pandemic died with a body, funeral directors would still take every precaution to protect themselves from catching it, he said.
Traditional funeral services will be banned, the dead are unlikely to be cremated and body bags may replace caskets if a bird flu pandemic strikes.
Funeral directors will play a key role in controlling the spread of a pandemic if, or when, it happens.
The implications of bird flu will be discussed as part of the 69th annual conference of the Funeral Directors Association of New Zealand, which was opened by MP Eric Roy at a formal dinner in Invercargill last night.
Association president John Duncan said representatives from 40 of the association's 100 member companies attending the conference would take part in an educational session to prepare funeral service personnel for a pandemic. The session would be the first of many held throughout the country, he said.
Mr Duncan said funeral directors were preparing based on a "worst-case scenario" , which would see them inundated with dead bodies.
"In little over a month we could carry out our annual average work-load."
The association's pandemic planning committee chairman Simon Manning said measures adopted by the funeral industry to curb the spread of pandemic would fly in the face of traditional customs.
A Government directive banning public gatherings would see all funerals banned.
Bodies would not be transported between districts and burials would take place as soon as possible after death, he said.
"Our goal is to have each person buried within 48 hours."
Lack of people to build coffins could see them replaced with heavy plastic body bags and cremations would cease.
Mr Manning said one reason was the possible interruption of gas supplies to crematoria coupled with difficulty, given a high death toll and absentee rate from work, in obtaining appropriate, signed medical referee authority for cremation.
Two doctors are required to sign before a cremation can take place, one after death and before the family signs consent, followed by another doctor.
While the virus responsible for the pandemic died with a body, funeral directors would still take every precaution to protect themselves from catching it, he said.