The Tribune

By KHRISNA RUSSELL

Tribune Chief Reporter

krussell@tribunemedia.net

THE country's unregulated funeral industry has presented some "'pretty scary" situations that now requires attention to prevent calamity, according to Health Minister Dr Duane Sands yesterday.

Recognising the challenges this presents, Dr Sands said the government is "minded to consider" draft legislation presented by the sector.

He said trained and certified morticians want to regulate the sector before they are faced with the imposition of laws with which they might not agree.

Officials expect this draft legislation will be tabled in the House of Assembly this quarter.

"The funeral industry in the Bahamas is completely unregulated," Dr Sands told reporters yesterday following the morning sitting of Parliament. "We have gotten from the funeral association, draft legislation, which we are minded to consider.

"But in the immediate term, we are going to be adding them to the Health Professions Council so that there are qualifications (and) certifications so people would have to be licensed in order to offer themselves as morticians.

"This is an area where the majority of the persons that operate in this sector do an admirable job, but there are some instances where it is less than adequate, less than appropriate and the public has complained."

Asked if officials were finding this to be more of an issue now than in the past, Dr Sands said there had been some challenges.

"In some instances it can get pretty scary. There are a number of individuals who have been trained as morticians. They have been certified as morticians, but we do not have any legislative or regulatory framework to guide the practice of mortuary science in the Bahamas and so it is the ethics of the individual proprietors that determines the outcome. This can go pretty bad pretty quickly depending on who you engage to take care of your loved ones.

"We have had some challenging issues. Bear in mind that mortuary science requires training if you are going to avoid some of the calamities that could happen."

He continued: "There could be transfer of infectious disease, inappropriate management of remains, illness in terms of contamination of the environment and so on and so forth.

"Those people that are properly trained and have a proper business approach understand these things, but if any person can get involved in this business without any certification at all, ostensibly because they provide a cheaper service, imagine the risk to the community imagine the risk to the public not to mention the fact that people's loved ones can be desecrated.

"This is an unregulated environment and it requires attention now. The majority of morticians understand this and they want to self-regulate before something is imposed on them."

In 2018, professionals in the funeral industry formed an association to advance and protect funeral professional practices. The move was in response to a surge of uncertified and untrained funeral director and embalmers.

At the time, the new Bahamas Funeral Directors Association (BFDA) said: "Historically, providers of funeral services and products were men and women with years of hands-on experience and a tremendous depth of practical knowledge and skills.

"As with all professions, with the adoption 21st century best practices and technological advances, the funeral industry in the Bahamas has witnessed the emergence of a dynamic and diverse cadre of professionally certified and skillfully trained funeral service practitioners with the entrepreneurial skills and acumen to match. With this emergence, the funeral industry has simultaneously witnessed an unprecedented upsurge of individuals claiming to be funeral directors and embalmers," the BFDA said.

The association noted that regrettably, such individuals grossly misrepresent the essence of a certified funeral director and embalmer.