Advocacy group calls for removal of funeral directors as cremation middleman
Photo:
123rf
An advocacy group wants to see funeral directors removed as the middleman in cremations, saying it's costing people money.
Death Without Debt spokesperson Fergus Wheeler explained two doctors were required to sign off on a death for cremation - the first would have seen the body and made notes about the cause of death, and a second doctor was required sign-off on that paperwork.
Currently, the system was set up so that people needed a funeral director to facilitate this second sign-off, with funeral directors billing the family for doing so - but legally, it did not have to be done this way.
Wheeler said a small tweak to the Ministry of Health's existing online death documents system could fix this, ideally allowing the first doctor's paperwork to be uploaded to the cloud to be checked by the second doctor, without the need for the funeral director to forward it on.
He said the cloud already existed, it just required a change of process.
"You can if you understand the medical referee system, sometimes, if you're lucky, get through the system," Wheeler said. "But 99.9 percent of the public have no idea how the system works."
As well as giving funeral directors permission to charge a service fee for this administration task, it also gave them the opportunity to "hook people into a package deal", charging grieving families for things they did not need.
The Funeral Directors Association strongly denied this allegation to the select committee.
With cremations now making up 80 percent of deaths - in part because the cost was still a lot less than a burial - Wheeler said this affected a lot of people.
"We don't blame the funeral industry particularly for this," Wheeler said. "It's actually the Ministry of Health [who have] known that the system has been dysfunctional for decades."
The Health Select Committee's final report into funeral debt was released last week.
In it, it agreed that "the current process and regulations impose high costs on the public and create a barrier for people who want to organise their own funerals, particularly when their loved ones are about to be cremated".
It encouraged the ministry to prioritise further work on updating the cremation regulations, and requested a report on the planned changes to regulations before the end of this parliamentary term.
"We also encourage the ministry to consider making all documents relating to cremation available on the Death Documents website. We note that the Ministry's planned work could address the current barriers to DIY funerals."
But Wheeler said those directives to the ministry were weak and lacked urgency.
"You've got a pretty major social problem with funeral debt happening, and the Health Select Committee have said, well, let's fix it sometime in the next few years. It's not quick enough, it's not urgent enough," he said.
The Funeral Directors Association, which represents about 75 percent of funeral homes, was approached for comment by the select committee, and its comments were included in the final report.
According to the report, it "strongly refuted what it described as Death Without Debt's 'allegations of predatory behaviour' on the part of funeral homes, and said that, on the contrary, the industry has a 'caring, respectful, and professional approach'."
"It maintained that, without public funding of funeral services, private funeral companies must fill the void. In so doing, these companies incur property, insurance, compliance, staffing, and other costs, which must be covered by the prices they charge."
It suggested the government introduce a legislative mandate for funeral prices to be transparent - it required price transparency from its members and said it encouraged them to offer free consultations for those pre-planning and pre-paying for funerals.
Comments from the Ministry of Health were also included in the report.
It acknowledged the current burial and cremation processes were "outdated and disproportionate, and needed modernisation".
It said previous work in this area had been delayed by Covid-19, but it was in discussions with the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment and the Department of Internal Affairs about modernising the regulation of the funeral sector.
"The ministry told us it is committed to reviewing the cremation regulations in 2025," the report said.
The Funeral Directors Association, the Ministry of Health and the select committee have been approached for further comment.
Sign up for Ngā Pitopito Kōrero
,
a daily newsletter curated by our editors and delivered straight to your inbox every weekday.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
RNZ News
an hour ago
- RNZ News
Polytech job cuts: 'The mood has changed from anger to sadness'
About 300 jobs are under threat at eight polytechs, says the Tertiary Education Union. File photo. Photo: Supplied Job and course cuts across the polytechnic sector are a nightmare, the Tertiary Education Union says. The union estimates that about 300 jobs are under threat at eight of the 16 institutions, with restructuring plans expected shortly from two more. The proposed cuts ranged from performing arts courses in Wellington to agriculture courses in Northland. Tertiary Education Union national secretary Sandra Grey said the institutes were doing what the government had told them to do. "The directive from the government was really, really clear. It was cut, cut, cut until you're financially stable and there's a huge problem with that because when you cut staff numbers, you cut the number of courses, you cut the viability of the institutions. This is a nightmare," she said. Grey said the scale of change was unprecedented. "In any given week I can receive two or three change proposals. That's individual groups of staff being affected, individual courses that are being cut," she said. "In the worst case scenario its almost one-in-five staff and that is massive for those communities as well because not only is that cutting courses for learners but that's taking money out of the local economy." Whitiereia Polytechnic TEU branch president Helen Johnstone said she had never seen anything like it in her 20 years at the institute. "We have had time and time again cuts across that period of time and lots of changes but for me this is the most significant that I have experienced. The most significant in terms of the impact on our particular polytechnic and what services and courses will be available and left for students." Johnstone said staff seemed resigned to the changes. "The mood has actually changed from anger to sadness," she said. "We went along to a staff update meeting and the mood in the room was just silence. I think everybody's in shock... that this is actually happening." Polytechnic and Te Pūkenga managers refused RNZ's request for an interview as did Vocational Education minister Penny Simmonds. But former Otago Polytechnic chief executive Phil Ker agreed the cuts were unprecedented. He said polytechnics had been struggling to make ends meet for years, but they had not all cut courses and staff at the same time. "This so-called viability issue has been around since I took up my chief executive job at Otago in 2004," he said. "There's been all sorts of work put in place at an institutional level to try and survive for the last 20 years plus. So there's always been some staffing reviews and job churn but what we're seeing now is a whole lot happening at the same time." Ker said the current round of cuts was aimed at creating financially-viable, stand-alone institutes but it would not work. "They're standing up on the basis of severe short-term cuts. There isn't a strong under-pinning financial model," he said. "These are all short-term fixes. It's looking for which programmes are the weak links right now, chop them out, shows a short-term benefit on the revenue statement and then a year down the track we'll see something else that's not 'viable' in inverted commas." Ker said the fundamental problem was everyone wanted a polytechnic system but nobody wanted to pay for it, least of all the government. "It's an inconvenient truth that we would like to have a really good vocational education system, but we don't want to pay for it. Employers don't want to pay directly for their training and the government doesn't want to pay adequately their share of the cost." Sign up for Ngā Pitopito Kōrero , a daily newsletter curated by our editors and delivered straight to your inbox every weekday.
RNZ News
an hour ago
- RNZ News
US-Iran conflict 'extremely worrying', NZ backs diplomacy
Foreign Affairs Minister Winston Peters says NZ will continue to call for diplomacy and dialogue. Photo: RNZ/Calvin Samuel Foreign Affairs Minister Winston Peters says the government wants to know all the facts before taking a position on the US strike on Iran's nuclear facilities . The United Nations Security Council was meeting in emergency session on Monday (NZ time) on the US on three key nuclear facilities at the weekend. UN secretary-general Antonio Guterres said the US bombing marked a perilous turn in a region already reeling. Iran called on the 15-member body to condemn what it called a "blatant and unlawful act of aggression", Reuters reported. Peters told Morning Report he was looking for evidence on the level of Iran's nuclear preparedness. "I'm looking for the evidence to do with the nuclear enrichment programme that was way outside the negotiated position they've been taking all this time. "That is, they've been marvellously good at negotiating their way out of things and the question is have they kept to their commitments, have they breached their international obligations. Let's find that out before we rush to judgement." A Defence Force C-130J Hercules is leaving for the Middle East on Monday to help any New Zealanders stranded in Iran or Israel. Peters reiterated New Zealanders should do everything they can to leave now if they could find a safe route. He said the crisis could get far worse. "We just don't know, and if we don't know you've got to take the greatest precaution you possibly can." On Sunday, Peters said ongoing military action in the Middle East was "extremely worrying". It was critical escalation was avoided, and New Zealand strongly support efforts towards diplomacy and urged all parties to return to talks, "Iran's nuclear activities have long worried New Zealand. We want Iran to comply with its international obligations. Our concern is that further military action is not going to deliver a sustainable solution to this problem." Labour's defence spokesperson Peeni Henare backed Peters' calls for a return to talks, but said the government should acknowledge the US breached international law and be "perhaps a bit stronger" in the first instance. Henare said Trump's statements had made it "quite clear" what had happened. "Countries can't call for peace and de-escalation, only to take the action that's been taken." Waikato University law professor Alexander Gillespie said the airstrikes were "clearly" illegal in terms of international law. "There's nowhere in the UN charter that says you can bomb someone who won't negotiate with you. But whether you get to a point where that is actually condemned is going to be very different," he said. "There's the theory of international law, with the UN Charter, and then there's the reality of international politics at the moment, which means that America will not be condemned internationally by the Security Council or even through the International Court of Justice." The prime minister is heading to NATO this week. New Zealand is not a member, but in recent years has been invited as a partner along with fellow Indo-Pacific Four nations Australia, Japan and South Korea. While Christopher Luxon would be "on the margins," Gillespie expected he would be watching closely to see what like-minded partners were saying. "This is an act which is not self-defence, and even if you argued it was pre-emptive self-defence, it wasn't necessary because there were other options of diplomacy still open. It will create difficulties if we speak out and say that, I don't think we're in a position to do that right now, for fear of the reaction that you get from America." Australia's government has already issued a statement on the airstrikes. "We have been clear that Iran's nuclear and ballistic missile program has been a threat to international peace and security," the statement said. "We note the US president's statement that now is the time for peace. The security situation in the region is highly volatile. We continue to call for de-escalation, dialogue, and diplomacy." The government is sending a C-130J Hercules plane to the Middle East, along with Defence Force and Foreign Affairs personnel, to assist New Zealanders stranded in Iran and Israel. Defence minister Judith Collins said the plane was a contingency, and would not be able to aid in evacuation flights until airspace restrictions in the region eased. In the meantime, those who were able to leave via a safe route were urged to do so. Peters said the flights would get people to a safe place. "We're not bringing them home. We're getting them to where they can make arrangements to get home." The government has been warning New Zealanders in the region to leave for a long time, Peters said. The number of New Zealanders registered as being in Iran or Israel had increased in recent days. The decision to send the Hercules was made even before knowledge of the airstrikes had come through. "Our anxiety was enunciated and formulated into policy, warnings, and collections of views months ago. We've been saying it, and it's a sad circumstance here, but we said 'look this is very dangerous, get out,'" Peters said. Citing security reasons, Collins would not say where the plane and personnel would be based. Both Henare and Gillespie supported the move. "I think if we're ready and on standby, at the very least, to make sure we can respond to our citizens and their needs, and also those of our diplomatic staff, I think that's a really smart move," Henare said. Gillespie said sending a plane was prudent in case the situation worsened quickly, and the damage became more indiscriminate.
RNZ News
an hour ago
- RNZ News
Iran ambassador to NZ on US strikes
The US airstrikes come amid increasing violence in the Middle East, with Israel and Iran trading missiles for more than a week now. Iran ambassador to New Zealand Reza Nazarahari spoke to Corin Dann. Tags: To embed this content on your own webpage, cut and paste the following: See terms of use.
