An additional component to the death certificate will allow you to enter the causes of death known several days after the death.
At the time of our death, a doctor fills out a report. It describes the cause of death, specifies the time of the last breath, the circumstances. The death certificate is essential for a good understanding of mortality in a country; it makes it possible to obtain epidemiological, demographic, medico-socio-economic data. In short, this final administrative document concerning us is essential to all.
But it is not always filled with the greatest of rigors. First, because fewer and fewer doctors agree to go to the home of the deceased to certify his death. The act is poorly paid and volunteers are scarce. But also because the information on the reasons for the death can change several days after death and then no one thinks of changing the finding.
Complementary section
Hence the decree published in Official newspaper this week-end. The text supplements the information which must appear on the death certificate by creating an additional medical section. This section is intended, precisely, to provide information on the causes of death when they are known several days later.
Thus, “when medical or scientific research into the causes of death has been carried out (…) or a forensic autopsy has been ordered”, then the information must be added to the file within this complementary section.
This additional information “confirms, supplements or replaces that appearing on the medical section of the death certificate” collected immediately after the death.
Electronic report
The administrative section and the medical section are established by the doctor who ascertains and certifies the death. The complementary medical component, for its part, is established by the doctor who carries out medical or scientific research into the causes of death or the forensic autopsy. “The medical component and the complementary medical component do not include the name or the first name of the deceased person, nor the registration number of persons in the national directory of identification of natural persons”, specifies the decree.
The text also confirms the procedure for dematerializing the death certificate, in particular for the administrative part, which must be drawn up “in electronic format or failing that on paper”.
It also provides that “data relating to the causes of death are made available to the national health data system (SNDS)”, created very recently. For the sake of simplification, the decree also abolishes the approval of the Ministry of the Interior concerning the plastic bracelet model used for the identification of deceased persons.
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