1 Comment

  1. Konrad Reardon

    July 10, 2019 at 5:28 am

    Thank you for a well written article – particularly praiseworthy is the focus on the patient’s family during the process of verifying death.

    It would be worth noting though that verification of death can be carried out by suitably qualified registered nurses and paramedics while it is death certification which is the exclusive responsibility of doctors. This is an important point because a JMO may be asked to complete a death certificate after death has already been verified within the previous 48 hours.

    This scenario would be less likely to occur in most hospitals given the ready availability of a member of the treating team to simultaneously verify and certify death, however it may be that in rural or outer regional hospitals lacking overnight JMO coverage there may be situations where verification and certification are separated in time and that it is a member of the health care team other than the medical officer who performs the verification of death.

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