By Abdul Ghani Al-Qash
Makkah
I CAN say without doubt that people who are bereaved by the death of a family member will be facing the pain of complicated government procedures to get a death certificate. Quite often people are not aware of what papers they have to submit to complete such procedures.
Relatives will be running between various government departments to complete the procedures in order to conduct the funeral and bury the body. The authorities should have simplified such procedures to make things easy for the relatives of the dead and reduce their pain.
Think of a series of terrifying procedures that follow the announcement of death. Even if the death occurred at a hospital, the relatives will be asked to bring proof of death. It will not end there and you will be asked to present more documents until you wonder: "Oh God, what is this!”
If the time for holding the funeral is very short and if you have not received the death report from the hospital, you will be in a desperate situation and have to sit in front of the hospital until the report is prepared. For example, if the patient died in the evening and you wanted to bury the body in the morning, the procedures will not be complete until after midnight.
What is all the more irritating is that after the burial, the authorities will demand a certificate to prove that the burial has taken place. After that the relatives have to visit the hospital again to get another document called "death notification."
In order to get the death certificate you have to present a number of documents such as the death notification, the burial certificate, and the dead person's ID and the ID of a relative.
With all due respect, I like to inform the Civil Affairs Department that it should demand either the death notification or the burial certificate, not both, because one of these documents is sufficient to prove a person's death.
Relatives have to present more documents after the person's death, including the document of assessing the deceased person's inheritance. They have to bring two witnesses before the judge to prove this as if we live in a primitive world where the computer is not in use.
We have computer systems in all our offices but if we do not use them effectively what is the purpose of having such modern technology? We still use paper documents and insist on bringing witnesses in person to complete various procedures.
A dead person's relatives who go through unbearable pain and grief will not be in a mood to go through such complications. The hospital where the death occurred should be obliged to inform the authorities about the death electronically and the Civil Affairs should not require a relative to visit its offices in person to inform about the death.
The computer system should be linked to all relevant government departments including the Civil Affairs. Relatives should not be punished by asking them to bring various documents. It is high time we complete such procedures in a civilized manner, removing all bureaucratic hurdles.
This is a message which I wanted to convey to all officials and departments involved in dealing with matters related to death. They have to review the present procedures and try to simplify them as far as possible to mitigate the pain of bereaved relatives.
Last Tuesday my eldest brother Ibrahim Naji Al-Qish passed away after suffering from a disease. I take this opportunity to thank all friends and relatives including ministers and colleagues who expressed their condolences on the death, as well as the newspapers that published the death report with importance.
May Allah bless them all and reward them for the good work.
