Concerned about the difficulties that many family members and health professionals – in particular funeral directors – are facing after the death of people due to Covid-19, researchers from the Department of Public Health, Interdisciplinary Center for Bioethics, Occupational Health Area and Discipline of Medicine Legal Department of the Faculty of Medical Sciences (FCM) at Unicamp created the Post-Death Support Group (GAPO). The objective is to identify vulnerabilities in relation to events that occur after the patient's death, proposing actions to combat this situation.
The beginning of GAPO's activities took place in partnership with SETEC, an entity of the Municipality of Campinas responsible for providing funeral services in the municipality. According to the professor of Legal Medicine at FCM's DSC and coordinator of GAPO, Paulo Newton Danzi Salvia, one of the first challenges identified by the group was the preparation of professional teams to carry out listening in verbal autopsies.
“Relatives who have just lost their loved ones at home, and are aware of the procedures determined by the State for suspected or confirmed cases of COVID-19, with the body sealed and buried quickly, often tend to omit information in order to avoid these procedures” .
In view of this reality, GAPO began offering technical training and discussion of cases to funeral directors, in order to identify and resolve the difficulties faced in their day-to-day work, especially in the context of a pandemic such as Covid-19.
“It is not uncommon for funeral directors to be blamed for sealing the body when information about the suspect is not recorded in the Death Certificate. Many family members desperately seek to open the coffin for a final farewell. If this happens, relatives and professionals are exposed to contamination”, comments Paulo Newton.
GAPO's proposal is to work so that all health professionals in the public network, including Basic Health Units, Hospitals, Long-Term and Private Institutions, clearly inform the procedures to be adopted, in order to protect all professionals involved in the handling of bodies and to family members and people close to the deceased. Medical professionals, legally responsible for filling out the Death Certificate, must record Covid-19 in the document, in case of suspicion or confirmation of the disease.
“Sealing the body without confirming the suspicion of Covid-19 in the Death Certificate, in addition to not guaranteeing the protection of professionals and family members, contributes to the generation of contradictory information that gives rise to different interpretations and anguish in family members”, says the professor at FCM.
Another difficulty identified by GAPO was the need to change the way bodies were sealed. To align procedures, the group published a TECHNICAL NOTE recommending the packaging of bodies in transparent plastic bags to facilitate visual recognition of the deceased, when necessary, in addition to providing guidance to verbal autopsy interviewers. “The operational change offers more security to family members when it comes to certifying whether the buried body really belongs to a family member”, comments Paulo Newton.
GAPO also noted the need to value the importance of the invisible work carried out by funeral directors. “They are health professionals who deserve all our respect and consideration, they are exposed to risks of contamination and psychological disorders. It is our social responsibility, as a public university, to offer all the necessary support”, stated the Group coordinator.
