Sudden and violent deaths as the name suggests, are those in which the person dies suddenly or unexpectedly, such as in the case described immediately above and also includes accidental deaths. Violent deaths are those occurring under criminal circumstances. All such deaths deemed to be “sudden” or “violent” fall under the jurisdiction of the law and require that a pathologist or equivalent officer perform a post mortem examination. From this examination, the Post Mortem Examination Report is completed and issued. Usually from this Post Mortem Examination Report, a Certificate of Coroner or Form D is completed, authorised by the Coroner’s Court. In cases where culpability of a crime must be investigated, then a Form D will be issued in the interim showing the cause of death. However, after a Coroner’s Inquest is complete then a Coroner’s Certificate or Form E is issued. The category “Uncertified Death” speaks to those death registrations, most of which are incomplete, that have no associated document as previously described. Due to the delay in obtaining the Post Mortem Examination Report, Form D or Form E in some “sudden and violent death” cases, the process known as “incomplete death registration” has evolved in response to this problem. Upon receipt of the proper supporting document for the death from the prescribed authorities, the registration is then completed and the event recorded in the vital statistics database.
For 2004 death registrations, 13,276 (94.5%) were certified by Medical Certificate of Cause of Death, 637 (4.5%) by Form D, 125 (0.9%) were uncertified, 11 (0.1%) by Form E and only one was certified by Post Mortem Report.
TABLE 11: DEATH REGISTERED IN EACH PARISH BY TYPE OF CERTIFICATION FOR 2004