THE Funeral Directors’ Association (FDA) has cited public health concerns in the operation of some funeral homes and is pushing to have the guidelines for the industry legally enforced to address what it says are ‘irregularities’ in the sector.

Acting FDA president Ferdinand Madden told the Observer that one main function of the guidelines would be to see the development of a licensing body for funeral directors.

“I don’t want to speak too much about that, but we hope to see the FDA become a licensed associate,” said Madden. “At present, anybody can just open a funeral home once they are registered as a company and we are asking for a public health criterion to open funeral establishments to protect the public, because there are public health issues. At present, there are guidelines for opening a funeral parlour but they are not enforced. I don’t know why this is so, but that is it.”

Madden, who declined to elaborate on the public health concerns of his association, said that as a licensed associate the recently formed FDA would “improve the integrity of the funeral industry”.

He made it clear, however, that the more than 100 funeral homes in the island would not all fall under the FDA’s umbrella, as several ‘crucial factors’ would be taken into consideration before membership is accepted.

“We didn’t go wide with all those you see in the directory,” he said. “Everytime you look another funeral parlour opens up and that is our major concern, to protect the profession and to keep the standard very high.”

According to Madden, the standards will sift some funeral homes “based on the fact that they are just not qualified in the basics”.

“On the legal part of it, the company has to be registered, and for each funeral parlour we were asking that they should have a certified mortician,” he explained. “The problem is that there is no school for certification in Jamaica.”

He said that most established funeral parlours have a certified mortician employed to them, but the FDA hoped to address the issue of having a school for certifying morticians.

In the meantime, Madden said the active life of the association, which began with 16 directors, had been somewhat retarded by the fact that several funeral directors had opted to start a separate association.

“After formulating the guidelines and the rules of the association we invited the other undertakers to join the association and that’s where we were with the process.” said Madden. “Some funeral directors actually went and started another, but we just want everything to be one before we move. We have managed to convince them otherwise.”

In the meantime, he said the association was partnering with the health ministry to make the guidelines legally binding.

“We will seek to have them legislated through the Ministry of Health, but I can’t put a time on it. We want to get the issue of the association behind us,” Madden told the Observer.

He said the association is to meet with Mayor of Kingston Desmond McKenzie shortly to discuss the ‘irregularities in the funeral industry’.

Madden said, too, that the matter of the issuing of death certificates was also one area the guidelines would address.

“The FDA would improve the integrity of the funeral industry, but as a body we would certainly have guidelines in place that would address the situation of getting death certificates,” said Madden.

“The Registrar General’s Department is playing a major part now where they are allowing persons to apply for the death certificate online, but a lot of these funeral parlours that pop up, they do the funerals and sometimes they don’t keep proper records of the deceased, so the relatives are unable to get the certificates through the funeral homes,” said Madden.

“A recording of the person should be at the Registrar General’s Department, but this is not being done efficiently when it is not reported,” he added. “From the undertaker gets the certificate of burial they just leave it at that and only if the relative is interested in estate matters that would warrant a death certificate do they pursue it or ask questions about it.”