Just wondering. How long was it between the death and the funeral or cremation.

Torry_Quine

p00hsticks said:

Torry_Quine said:

These do seem long. I've been involved in organising 3 funerals. Two were less than a week and one of those died at Easter. The most was my husband at 11 days but that was just because of the date I chose.

Were those deaths expected though ?
It took 8 days for me to even be in a position where we had the necessary paperwork to register the death... 

None of them were expected. 

[Deleted User]

In Belfast wife passed on the Saturday, coroner decided on Monday that no post mortem was required and released body on Tuesday. Funeral could have been on the Thursday but Chapel had a wedding on so had to wait until Friday. This was long for over here.

Time2count

The longest I've experienced was only last year, no suspicious circumstances, no post mortem etc and 9 weeks from death to funeral. And that seems to have been purely down to crematorium availability.

GDB2222

Time2count said:

The longest I've experienced was only last year, no suspicious circumstances, no post mortem etc and 9 weeks from death to funeral. And that seems to have been purely down to crematorium availability.

It is very strange to have such a long delay at the crematorium, if it’s routine. You would think they would install extra, ahem, facilities, or work night shifts. 

tooldle

Mum mum died on 17th October. She was cremated on 31st October. No funeral service and an unaccompanied cremation. I’m guessing these arrangements partly contributed to a shorter wait time by taking an unpopular / inconvenient slot. 

Sarahspangles

tenzin_2 said:

My father died earlier this year. He was in the funeral home for 6 weeks. Six whole weeks, we took the earliest date the crematorium in our town had an appointment for the service and cremation. Six weeks seems a long time to be in a fridge, and he was claustrophobic in life. 

When I lived in Ireland if you died one week, you were buried the next. My Muslim friends have 24 hour later funerals. 

What has your experience been like? 

I also didn’t like my dad being in the funeral home.

Three funerals in three years 😢 The shortest wait was just over a week, the longest four weeks. But we didn’t have the choice of ‘prime’ slots at the crematoria for any of these.  Friday afternoon would have been convenient if there had been family members travelling up the same day, but most were happy to come the night before and stay over.

In some areas there is more pressure on crematoria than others, and they are busiest when respiratory death rates are high in Winter.  We accepted a slot between Christmas and New Year for one funeral because they were fully booked into mid January by families who didn’t want to ‘spoil Christmas’.

p00hsticks

Torry_Quine said:

p00hsticks said:

Torry_Quine said:

These do seem long. I've been involved in organising 3 funerals. Two were less than a week and one of those died at Easter. The most was my husband at 11 days but that was just because of the date I chose.

Were those deaths expected though ?
It took 8 days for me to even be in a position where we had the necessary paperwork to register the death... 

None of them were expected. 

In that case I think less that a week from death to funeral is incredibly quick, given the amount of bureaucracy involved if a doctor is not in a position to immediately sign a death certificate. 

user1977

GDB2222 said:

Time2count said:

The longest I've experienced was only last year, no suspicious circumstances, no post mortem etc and 9 weeks from death to funeral. And that seems to have been purely down to crematorium availability.

It is very strange to have such a long delay at the crematorium, if it’s routine. You would think they would install extra, ahem, facilities, or work night shifts. 

No point if people are prepared to wait. Though I think some places have extra weekend shifts for the winter rush.

ellie99

When my husband died 30 years ago, his burial followed the expected norm at that time...which was 3 working days from death. So he died on a Wednesday and was buried the following Monday. (If he'd died on a Tuesday burial would have been Friday). It was the same for everyone unless there was a good reason for holding the funeral up, and it seemed to work well.

I've struggled to understand why it takes so long nowadays. I wonder if it's because more people are being cremated, and there are not that many crematoria available. There were none in my county, now there is still only one. So makes sense that people have to wait for a slot as they're covering a much wider area than a church burial would do.

I've just been to a cremation, it was 3 weeks after death. Personally, getting the funeral by with was a huge relief, I'm not sure I'd like having to wait for weeks.

Torry_Quine

p00hsticks said:

Torry_Quine said:

p00hsticks said:

Torry_Quine said:

These do seem long. I've been involved in organising 3 funerals. Two were less than a week and one of those died at Easter. The most was my husband at 11 days but that was just because of the date I chose.

Were those deaths expected though ?
It took 8 days for me to even be in a position where we had the necessary paperwork to register the death... 

None of them were expected. 

In that case I think less that a week from death to funeral is incredibly quick, given the amount of bureaucracy involved if a doctor is not in a position to immediately sign a death certificate. 

Just because it's unexpected doesn't have to mean it takes a long time and there's lots of bureaucracy.