Death and the cruel process that follows | Letters

Christine Holloway regrets that her call to a GP after her mother’s death started a legal process that whisked the body away before she’d had time to say goodbye

Annalisa Barbieri was lucky to have been able to keep her father at home for 11 hours after he died (Family, 6 January). I found my mother (aged 90) who had died in her sleep at home. Not knowing what to do, I rang her GP. This started a legal process that whisked her body away before I had time to say goodbye. Because she did not die in hospital or hospice and hadn’t seen her GP in the last two weeks, the GP was required to contact the police, who had to come and keep guard on the body until the undertakers came to take it away, I assume in case she’d been murdered. They couldn’t even wait for my sister to arrive to see my mother dead in her bed.

If I’d been warned that this would happen, I would have spent an hour or two quietly with my mother’s body before I rang the GP.

Continue reading... January 12, 2018 at 11:48PM