Backyard Funerals Targeted

"Backyard" undertakers who keep bodies in kitchen fridges and provide no washing facilities for workers handling corpses should be targeted in an upcoming industry review, according to the Funeral Union of Australia.

Union secretary, Aiden Nye, will tell an NSW Parliament inquiry the industry lacks a proper code of practice or monitoring body to ensure dignity for families and workers.

Nye says lax licensing and procedural regulations have led to horror stories of bodies being operated on, washed, and dressed in residential backyards and babies being kept in domestic fridges. Some undertakers do not even refrigerate cadavars.

Nye is calling for workers to be given proper training, protective clothing, washing facilities and crucial information about cause of death - especially where infectious disease is involved.

He says in the absence of a proper policing body for the industry meant the union had had to step into the breech and prosecute shonky operators.

"We need much better monitoring and approval of premises."

Submissions to the inquiry close on May 17.

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Last modified: Tuesday, 15-Nov-2005 20:37:35 EST