REGISTRATION OF DEATHS.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 5798, 18 September 1880, Page 2 (Supplement)

REGISTRATION OF DEATHS.

TO THE EDITOR. Sm, —As a corollary to the recent case in which I was prosecuted for alloged non-compliance with the terms of the Registration Act, will you favour me by Inserting the .appended correspondence. It will show your readers tho state of the law as to registering deaths, and the manner in which tho Act is being administered,—l am, So., Robert Borrows. Dunedin, Soptcmber 13th.

Duuodin, 10th August, 18S0. To the Registrar-general, Wellington. Sir,—l beg to solicit your attention to the report of a prosecution instituted against mo by Mr Ure, registrar in Dunedin, for an alleged breach of the Registration Act in refusing to give a certificate of death of the child of one Robert Stokes. That report is contained in the Otigo Daily Times of the 3rd inst., duplicate copies of which I have forwarded for your perusal. My purpose Is not to complain of the prosecution ; I willingly submitted to it, so as to test the point whother a medical man is bound to give a certificate of death at tho demand of a funeral undertaker without tho power of calling for information from the friends of the doceased. But what I do complain of is the course that Sir lire, the registrar, has pursuod in presenting the case to you and to the Court. First, it has been elicited that Mr Ure withheld from you a letter I had sent to him stating my inability to certify in proper form the cause of death without further information from the father of the child. This letter you will now find embodied in one published in tho Otago Daily Times of the 4th inst., of which I have also sent you a copy. Second, I complain most emphatically that Mr Ure should have publicly imputed to me a mercenary motive on the statement of interested parties, and sworn in open Court that I had refused to give a certificate of death of the child Stakes .because my foes had not been paid. I here affirm my evidence in Court that such a statement is absolutely untrue. The mother of the child had enlisted my sympathy by a pitiable tale of neglect and privation which had driven her very recently away from Invercargill. She begged me to telegraph thither to her husband about the child, as he would pay more attention to me. I did so twice. When the undertaker called for a certificate, 10 days after the burial, 1 expressed my astonishment that the father, then 12 days in town, had never called upon me, not even to acknowledge my trouble and expense in telegraphing to him, not to mention fees. This mere allusion, and nothing more, could bo the only ground for Mr Ure's extraordinary statement that 1 had demanded my fees before certifying. Igo into this detail because I have reason to believe Mr Ure made the same representation to you, while withholding the true reason which I had given him in writing.

In practice I find it impossible to carry some of the necessary details of a case in my memory, so that when an undertaker calls for a certificate I very often ask him to send one of the friends to ansiror my queries while I write. Most of the undertakers do so readily. But there arc a few in this city who make

a practice of* keeping friends in the background who find it inconvenient to appear. It was an undertaker of this class with whom I had to deal in the case of the child Stokes. This consideration, together with surrounding circumstances noted duriny my attendance, and the rapidly fatal illness, made me feel it my duty to see the father before I certified to the cause of death. I intimated my wish to the parent through the undertaker, and also to Mr Ure in

writing, yet the latter gentleman lent his influence in resisting' this very reasonable request. The answer I got verbally in the Registrar's office was, " It's nono of our business to send to anybody." If such a system bo continued it will render the registration of death in many cases a mere farce, and it will be felt an intolerable tyranny by the medical profession. I trust, therefore, you will sec it your duty to give such instructions to_ the Registrar in rhinedin as will assist

medical men in the conscientious performance of their duty to the public—l have, &c,

lloberi Borrows,

f Regfcitrar-ueneral's Office, Wellington, August 14th, 1880. Dr E, Borrows, Duucdin.

Sir,—l have the honour to acknowledge the receipt of your lettor of the loth inst., relntive to the prolecution in»Mtuted ajpiiut you ty Mr Vt »n$ ccrtf*

ing extracts from the Otago Daily Times, You state you do not complain of the fact of the prosecution, but you complain that Mr Ure should have wrongfully imputed mercenary motives to you as a cause for liaving refused to give the certerificate; and, 2. That Ho should have withheld your letter to him. I apprehend you do not attach much real importance to the letter not having been sent to me, as the only effect it would have had would have been to delay prosecution, if the reasons therein given by you had been deemed sati-factory. But you do not object to the fact of prosecution—in fact, your solicitor remarked that the case was "defended in order to test whether the undertaker was called on to interfere until the 31 days were up." Clearly, then, where a prosecution was desirable to test a principle it was of minor importance whether the Registrar sent to me a letter giving reasons for refusal, the fact of refusal remaining unaltered. It is true in his tele-ram the Registrar stated the refusal was caused by your not having been paid the fees. The telegram havin" been sent on the 19th, I am not sure that it was not sent before the receipt by him of your letter, as you refer to a previous letter of youre of the 17th. In all probability your letter reached Mr lire after the telegram was sent; and I must say, that acting on the information given to him, and judging from the evidence given and your own statement, I cannot think that he was making any other than a statement that he believed at the tune to be true; but as a reflection of that kind must be painful to you, it is to be regretted that the intent of your words was misunderstood. It is not necessary forme to defend the Act, the provisions of which you condemn; but I wish to touch upon one matter on which you appear to be under a misapprehension. It is not necessary to register before burial. It would be impossible to enforce such a provision, as often a body would have to be kept out of the ground for a lengthened period when the death may occur at a distance from where tbe Registrar's office is. That would cause serious inconvenience, and as there is a limit of 31 days within which a death may be registered, it cannot be supposed that a body could be kept that time out of ground. 2. A Registrar cannot authorise a burial. 3. A Coroner is absolutely prohibited by the Act from giving an authority or certificate to bury the body, except after inmiext held by him. Generally, I may state that as the death must be registered within 31 days, and the medical practitioners attendin" on death are aware that they will be called upon for certificates, there would not be any difficulty experienced l.i giving the particulars if a few notes were kept for the purpose. The information being of value, I think members of the medical profession should co-operate with the department in endeavouring to secure complete and accurate returns.—l have, &c, Wm. B. B. Brohx, Registrar-general.

m ~ „ . . Dunedin, 24th August, 18S0. To the Registrar-General, &c, ■Wellington. Sir,—l have the honour to acknowledge receipt of your letter of the 14th, in reply to mine of the 10th instant.

You say that you " apprehend I do not attach much importance to" my "letter not having been sent." In this you are mistaken. It is of great importance to my professional and social character that I be correctly represented to the Registrar-general of the Colony in which I practise.

I learn with amazement that you delegated your authority to prosecute to our local Registrar, on a mere telegraphic report from him, without inquiring into the circumstances surrounding that unusual request, on such equally unusual grounds as the nonpayment of fees. You apologetically assume, on behalf of Mr Ure, that my second letter had reached him after his telegram to you had been sent. As a fact, my letter was delivered on the same day as you say the Registrar telegraphed to you, and at the earliest office hour. But wherefore question the time? Does not Mr Ure avow in his evidence that he " did not think it necessary, even out of courtesy," to forward my "reasons for refusing to the "Registrargeneral " ?

I thank you much for directing my attention to certain clauses in the Act, which indeed I had noted long ago, but they only make more manifest the necessity there is for amendment. Framed, as these clauses obviously have been, for the circumstances of remote settlement, I fail to see the bearing of your quotation on this, the largest city In New Zealand. Surely time and distance cannot be pleaded here for burial with a month's delay before the cause of death has to becertified. "

You conclude with a jutm-rccommendation which, pardon me, I can scarcely contemplate without a smile : I refer to the keeping- of "notes." Why, there are few medical men, I am certain, who do not keep notes, and yet those oases requiring the greatest circumspection are precisely the ones in which reflections will arise up to the last moment, suggesting questions which can only be answered by someone personally cognisant of the deceased's illness. For precision in dates no busy medical man can possibly burden his memory, and to ask him to keep a book for the accommodation of an undertaker who includes the "certificate" in his business would be expecting rather much. Far more reasonable would it be to direct your subordinates, the local registrars, to insist on culpable friends doing their duty personally as informants under the Act, defective though it be. I am at one with you in thinking that "the medical profession should co-operate with" your "department in endeavouring to secure complete and accurate returns. Was it not for the very purpose of securing the very accuracy and completeness you desire that I preferred being taken into Court, rather than lend myself any longer to a system which has been rendering the registration of death, in Dunedin at lea-t, utterly valueless for the medico-legal necessities of the community ? I observe you have passed over in silence the complaint I made, that Hr Ure had lent his influence in resisting my very reasonable request to see the father of the child Stokes before certifying- to the cause of death. Will you kindly inform me whether this means an approval of Mr Ure's action. Pending an amendment of the Registration Act, it is very important that medical practitioners should clearly understand their position in the event of an undertaker demanding a certificate under cover of the Utter of the law as it now stands.—l have, &c,

Robert Borrows,

Registrar-general's Office, Wellington, August 30th, 1880.

Dr Borrows, Public Vaccinator, Dunedln

Sir,—l have the honour to acknowledge the receipt of your letter of the 2ith inst., commenting upon mine of the 10th inst.

In the first instance I beg to state that the reason given by Hr Ure for your not supplying the certificate, viz., because your fees were not paid, has in no way induced in my mind any feeling injuriously affecting your professional reputation. I recognise that you refused to grant the certificate for certain reasons, apparently satisfactory to yourself, however inadequate as an excuse in a court of law, and that you, rather than give the certificate, preferred the prosecution to test a principle. On the other hand, I consider that on the bare refusal, without regard to the cause, whether it was or was not on account of non-payment of fees, it was necessary to enforce compliance with the Act. The Court having upheld the view that you were legally bound to supply the certificate in terms of the Act, that is, to the best of your knowledge and belief, it is not necessary to refer to that question. You wish me to state whether I approve of Mr Ure's action, the complaint being that he had lent his influence in resisting your request to see the father of the child before certifying. I am unable to give an opinion on such action, as I really fail to understand what the charge means—but clearly it was no part of Mr Ure's duty to interfere in any way whatever between you and the father of the child; nor was it his duty to endeavour to afford you facilities to communicate with such father. His duty was strictly limited to requiring the person registering, whether undertaker or father, to produce the doctor's certificate; and if such person could not do so on account of a distinct refusal, or even neglect, to give such certificate when asked for, to report the refusal to me.

You seem to think that there is an ambiguity about the Ac',, as you state it is important that medical practitioners should clearly understand their position in the event of an undertaker demanding a certificate.

The Act as I read it is clear and simple. The medical attendant is required to give the certificate to some person responsible for registration— i.e., occupier of house, person present at death, or undertaker (the medical attendant present at the time of death being included in the persons responsible for registration). Having bo given the certificate to one of such persons, the responsibility for the delivery of the certificate ceases, and the person who received it is responsible for its delivery to the Registrar. I do not think it is necessary that I should now discuss the policy of the Act, but I have to observe, with respect to your remarks, that an Act of this kind would be unworkable if the operation was diverse in different portions of the Colony.—l have, &c, Wm. B. B. Beow.v, Registrar-general,

Registrar-General's Office, Wellington, August 31st, 1880. Sir,—Since writing to you yesterday the Registrarat Dunedin has reported to me that you have not yet supplied the certificate of death in respect of which proceedings were instituted against you. May I ask you to be good enough, in terms of the Act, to supply the certificate to the best of your knowledge and belief. As I am advised a conviction does not exonerate you from the necessity of supplying the certificate, but that until supplied you become liable to a penalty'in each case of refusal, and that if again asked for tho certificate by a person responsible for the registration, and the certificate be again refused or not given, you again become liable to piosecution, I should regret to be under the necessity of instructing further proceedings, but it is important that the certificate should be supplied.

In connection with this I take the opportunity of referring to a matter omitted in my last. You treated lightly my remarks about notes being taken, and state notes are always taken. If so, your letter in the local paper was certainly calculated to mislead, as you stated that a medical practitioner is bound to give a " certificate on his own information and probably crowded memory, a month after," &c.—l have, &c., W. B. B. Brown, Registrar-general.

To the Registrar-general, &c,, Wellington. Sir,—l have the honour to acknowledge receipt of your letters dated 30th and 31st August. Until I received your last lettor no one had applied to me for a certificate of the cause of the death in question. I have now sent one to the Registrar in this city, couched in terms, to the best of my knowledge and belief, which, vague though they "be, you indicate will meet the requirements of the Registration Act.

Your concluding reference to the taking of notes and your association of my remarks with my "letter in a local paper" 1 cannot understand, though I have repeatedly endeavoured to do so.—l have, &c, Robert Borrows.

Dunedin, Bth September.