INDIVIDUALS accessing burial orders through the Registrar General’s Department (RGD) can now do so through its new electronic burial order database.

Development of the system comes as part of the RGD’s efforts at providing customers with a safe, quick and convenient way of doing business.

Persons will now be able to register a death at any RGD location in the parish where the death occurred, choose the option for electronic delivery, and verify the burial order through the RGD’s secure web portal.

Chief executive officer and deputy chief of records at the RGD, Charlton McFarlane told JIS News that the service is only applicable to deaths in hospitals and health centres.

“The RGD is not the only entity that produces a burial order, the police do it too. So, any death outside of an institution, the police have to… first declare that they have no interest in the death and they don’t believe it is as a result of any foul play. When the police declare that, then that’s when persons can come into the RGD and use our services,” he explained.

With the new system, the next of kin of the deceased does not necessarily have to come into the hospital to inform the chief medical officer of the death.

“When the medical cause of death certificate is developed and signed off by the physician, it can then be passed directly to the medical records officer at the hospital who then passes it to our registration officers. So, the informant can also be, by law, that officer as a person having knowledge of the death. We will then produce and write up the burial order and send a digital copy to the customer or the next of kin. That digital copy is going to be in the format of an e-mail notification,” McFarlane noted.

Once the preparations begin for funeral arrangements, churches, funeral homes and the parish council can log on to the RGD website and access the order.

McFarlane said on the website, individuals will be required to enter the unique number provided as well as the surname of the deceased.

“When those are entered, persons will click search and if the information corresponds with what we have on record, a pop-up message will come up to say that this burial order is authentic and was issued by the Registrar General’s Department. In addition to that, there will be a digital display of the actual burial order with all the other information therein; they will also have the option of printing the image. So, our verification is two-stage… one stage is we can tell you the burial order is genuine and secondly, if it is genuine, you will see a digital image of the actual burial order with all the other pertinent information,” he pointed out.

Meanwhile, individuals who choose to go into the RGD will also have the options of getting the burial order electronically or having the physical copy printed.

To access the portal, individuals can visit rgd.gov.jm to verify a burial order. For further information, the public can call the RGD at 876 619-1260 or 749-0550, e-mail information@rgd.gov.jm, or contact them on Facebook at RGD Jamaica and on Twitter and Instagram at RGD Jamaica.