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Errors galore in death certificates as city reports excess mortality
With the number of deaths in the city going up owing to the COVID-19 pandemic, kin of several deceased are complaining about errors in death certificates, rendering them useless for official purposes.
Chennai
G Arun, a city resident said one of his relatives died in a government hospital a few weeks ago but the death certificate issued by the Chennai Corporation has wrong address details.
“Due to this, we cannot apply for a legal heir certificate and other documents. Even after repeated attempts, Corporation officials refuse to correct the details,” he said.
Arun is not alone in this as several residents are facing similar issues. Some certificates have mis-spelt the names of the deceased while others have a wrong address or age. When asked, a Corporation official clarified that the civic body enters the details as provided by the hospitals concerned.“Hospitals collect the details of the patients during admissions.
At this point, either the relatives make mistakes in providing the details or the staff introduce them. The same will be entered in the death report (Form 2). Based on death reports, our data entry operators fill the certificates and sanitary inspectors approve them,” the official said.
He said the civic body will not be able to change the details provided by the hospitals. According to the Birth and Death Registration portal of the State government, as many as 58,208 deaths have occurred in the state in 2021. The civic body should issue death certificates within 21 days after the incident.
How to get a death certificate corrected
According to an official, the details in the death certificates can be corrected once hospitals rectify the errors that have crept into their reports. “If any resident finds wrong details in death certificates, they can get an amendment order from the hospital, which is nothing but corrected death report. Based on the amendment, we can change the details. However, once entered, deceased person’s name and date of death cannot be changed,” the official explained. Spelling mistakes introduced by the civic body’s data entry operators while entering the details can be corrected at the Corporation level itself, without amendment from the hospitals.
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