Ngati Ruanui challenges the Ministry of Justice to ensure changes to Coronial Services delivery will result in a “more responsive and culturally aware to families and whanau of deceased” experience rather than adding to New Zealand’s horrifying suicide statistics.

As of October 1 2018, The Ministry of Justice has announced a new service delivery model for Coronial Services. For Taranaki residents, this will mean our deceased will travel out of region, and potentially away from families, to receive autopsy/post-mortem operations.

Recently announced New Zealand suicide statistics bring a real focus to these Coronial Service changes, says Debbie Ngarewa-Packer, kaiarataki Te Runanga o Ngati Ruanui Trust.

“Families are already feeling isolated, alone and depressed and now they may need to travel long distances with no support. These statistics show disproportionately high numbers of Male Maori choosing to end their lives. There were 142 Maori deaths in the 2017/2018 year and 97 of those were Maori Men,” she says.

“How are we supposed to wrap around our grieving and lift them up if we are pulled apart by this system? This arrangement is the result of a procurement process completed by a bunch of bureaucrats and we now have to work reactively with the Ministry of Justice to ensure cultural needs can be catered for.”

Ngarewa-Packer says Ngati Ruanui has been advised by Ministry of Justice that there are no facilities to support or accommodate families travelling with deceased, nor is there travel expense funding. The Ministry of Justice hasn't discussed the needs of families and whanau direct with Taranaki residents.

“These issues create a bureaucratic barrier that interrupts the natural grieving process. Men already feel they have to suppress their emotions which leads to silent suffering that the statistics show us too often ends with suicide.

“Ministry of Justice have looked at something that works on paper but have not factored in the human support required during extreme sudden death grief. There has been absolutely no cultural consideration as the 2006 Coroners Act requires.”

Ngati Ruanui aims to work with the Ministry of Justice and Minister Andrew Little to minimise the impact on all Taranaki residents.

“The Ministry of Justice tells us that the Taranaki Base Hospital facility would not meet the new standard for accredited mortuaries, the Taranaki District Health Board must upgrade so that services can return to the region,” Ngarewa-Packer says.

“The Ministry of Justice needs to facilitate the travel of families with the deceased. Families need to be empowered and resourced to cope with their bereavement. They shouldn’t have to worry about the expense, how to get there, where to stay or how they will be received.

“If this new structure isn’t carefully managed and implemented that consistency is likely to be in time delays, lack of cultural awareness and increased hardship for the families members of the deceased.”

Te Runanga o Ngati Ruanui Trust chairman Haimona Manuera is concerned that the current bereavement legislation wasn’t designed to work within this new system.

“If they’re going to change the process, they have to ensure all systems will work with it and it doesn’t look like the Ministry of Justice have thought about that.”

He’s concerned the current delays and trauma will only get worse under the new regime.

“Families will be forced to separate so that some can stay with the deceased but it meant others won’t get to see them at all. People get three days off work for a close bereavement but for the first 48 hours they won’t even be nearby.

“People will have to travel home on that third day, before the Tangi and without saying their goodbyes properly. Situations can get heated, families will battle to be close by for the little time they have left.”

The Coroner’s Act 2006 only allocates funding to transport the deceased to the operation location, the family funds the costs to return their loved-one home.

Ngarewa-Packer says there are already instances of families sleeping in cars near mortuary facilities because the ever-increasing costs of an unexpected death are too high.

Added to this is the emotional harm caused to family who are forced to separate from a deceased family member too soon.

“It is increasingly important for the bereaved to stay close, often until burial. It isn’t fair on the family, those providing the transport service or those delivering the post mortem/autopsy to force a separation of hundreds of kilometres before the family is emotionally prepared.”

ENDS.

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