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View Full Version : Importance of accurate death certificates (and frequently woeful absence of such)


Janet
03-07-13, 03:05
Pretty interesting article in the New York Times today, I thought, regarding death certificates or at least the U.S. ones. They provide some famous examples too. Not sure how parallel it all is to other countries, but they certainly mention some distortions similar to complaints I've heard on here. Hope you can access the links.

NY Times on death certificates (http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/02/health/making-the-right-call-even-in-death.html?pagewanted=all)

some famous examples (http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2013/07/02/health/20130702_deathcertificates.html?ref=health)

Jill
03-07-13, 06:55
An interesting read Janet, thankyou.

Phoenix
03-07-13, 08:48
How true. Computers mean you put down a prescribed code, and if the description most appropriate doesn't fit, it gets changed.

Mortality bills were much more fun, even if some of the descriptions are difficult to understand.

On a serious point, it is a betrayal of the dead and contempt for their loved ones not to give an accurate description of death.

marquette
03-07-13, 08:58
My mother and grandfather had to argue with the doctor to have Huntingdons Disease listed as a secondary cause of death for my grandmother - the listed cause of death is arteriosclerosis.

If the HD was not included, the death certificate ignored the years of suffering and hospitalisation of my grandmother.

Olde Crone
03-07-13, 09:50
Indeed. My mother's death certificate records the cause of death as a heart attack. What no one will ever realise from that simple cause is that she was crippled with arthritis for many years and was taking massive doses of steroids long term.

My friend's father's death was recorded in the wrong first name by a care worker. The fuss entailed in trying to change that first name meant that it has been left as it is, so anyone ever looking for his death won't find it except by sheer luck - surname Smith.

OC

Janet
03-07-13, 18:31
On a serious point, it is a betrayal of the dead and contempt for their loved ones not to give an accurate description of death.

I do very much agree, Phoenix.

anne fraser
04-07-13, 09:36
Janet I remember being shown a video on the subject many years ago as part of my nurse training. It seems very little has changed.

Janet
05-07-13, 04:15
So was the video worth its salt, Anne? I wonder what it was intended to teach you.

I don't suppose there's too much can be done about bad death certs. It seems to be human nature to want to gloss over the facts and close the door. Di's and OC's stories are perfect examples of what's lost when that happens, though.

Nell
06-07-13, 11:22
I don't think much of death certs. My grandfather's death, registered by my uncle, has his date of birth out by a year and a misspelt birthplace.

My brother's death, which I registered myself, annoyed me too - I was able to give his birthplace, Sanderstead, but his death (same house) was recorded as South Croydon because they've faffed about with the boundaries. Sanderstead and South Croydon have their own railway stations and are never confused by people who live there. But anyone who found his cert in years to come wouldn't know he was born and died in the same house as the registrar didn't even record the house number or road! It rankles, people!

Olde Crone
06-07-13, 12:18
I suppose on the one hand, death certs are ONLY concerned with what a person died of, they are not intended to be a medical history of that person.

However, like Nell, I am endlessly annoyed and upset that my father's death cert contains such an obscure cause of death that it is meaningless - the registrar had to phone the doctor concerned, in my presence, to try to discover what the death cause meant. (Dad died of a massive unspecified infection which took him from cutting down trees on Sunday afternoon to dead by Monday night).

I am also intrigued as to how "they" can come up with such statistics as "One third of all deaths are smoking related" (or whatever it is) as this kind of information does not appear on death certs.

OC

Anstey Nomad
06-07-13, 12:58
It also seems to still be extremely difficult to persuade anyone to list a hospital acquired infection as a cause of death.

AN

Margaret in Burton
06-07-13, 13:06
It also seems to still be extremely difficult to persuade anyone to list a hospital acquired infection as a cause of death.

AN

That would be admitting it happened.

Olde Crone
06-07-13, 17:07
Margaret and AN

you are right. My friend died just after Xmas, from MRSA which she contracted whilst having an emergency operation for liver cancer. The cause of death on her cert is Cancer of the Liver. No mention of MRSA. Her husband who is of the old school which believes that doctors are gods, told me earnestly that "most people have got MRSA but it only comes out when you have an operation".

She would have died within days anyway, but that is really not the point.

OC

Margaret in Burton
06-07-13, 17:42
Christmas Eve 2005 my OH was rushed back into theatre after a major spinal op to remove calcium from around his spinal cord, the calcium was trapping the spinal cord and would have severed it leaving him paralysed from the chest down. He got C Diff in the wound. They found he was allergic to the antibiotics they gave him and he had to have the wound flushed out and re stitched. Luckily he recovered, wonder what the cause of death would have been if he hadn't? The op was not life threatening any more than any surgery, it threatened his way of life not life itself.