The Tribune

By YOURI KEMP

Tribune Business Reporter

ykemp@tribunemedia.net

The Government was yesterday again urged to properly regulate the funeral industry amid fears that untrained persons are being licensed to offer mortuary services.

Kirsch Ferguson, the Bahamas Funeral Directors Association’s president, told Tribune Business: “There are some age-old problems that we have been having over the years.

“We’ve been trying to address, as an association, the Government considering proper legislation for funeral service providers. We’ve seen a quite an influx of new entrants into the industry because of the death rate increasing during this pandemic, where new funeral homes came on stream.

“While we do welcome persons to come into the industry, we only require that they have the proper credentials. The licensing authority issued licences for persons who are not trained at all in mortuary science,” he continued.

“It’s a great insult to those of us who would sacrifice our time and finances to become qualified morticians to now have anybody prey on persons because of this COVID-19 environment, and open funeral homes and begin offering services.

“We find it a great injustice to us as morticians, and to Bahamians as a whole, and we plead for government to please take into due consideration what we have proposed over the years and let’s move forward with this expeditiously.”

Mr Ferguson, meanwhile, added that COVID capacity restrictions are more damaging to the deceased’s family and friends than to the industry.

He said: “These COVID-19 restrictions aren’t affecting the funeral homes per se, but rather the clients we serve. As you know, people would prefer to go the traditional route with the body being housed in church and having a final viewing at the church.

I think we have had some leeway where the Christian Council was able to negotiate with the powers-that-be to at least allow families to have the funeral services in church, but the body remains in the hearse. So that has been a compromise at this point, which has been most favourable for most Bahamians based on what we have experienced over the past year and-a-half.”

Current COVID-19 restrictions limit outdoor and indoor gatherings to a maximum size of 30 and 20 persons, respectively. Mr Ferguson said that if an arrangement can be reached between the Christian Council and the Government on further easing funeral services restrictions it would be “great” for family members who are enduring an emotional time saying farewell to a loved one.

He added that the strain on New Providence’s morgue, caused by family members’ failure to collect their loved ones’ bodies for burial, has “subsided”.