General Chat

The waiting must be so hard but hopefully someone will now at least keep you "in the loop" and you now have some idea of the reason for the delay. Try not to get too tense about it (silly thing to say I know) and relax as much as you can. You have lots of support on here <3

Thank you for keeping us updated as we are concerned about you. I know the waiting is hard but there's nothing you can do at the moment. It's frustrating but look after yourself.

Rollo, many thanks for the update. You have so much to think about. I hope that this will be resolved before very long. Remember to try to relax if you can.

Thank you for the update, Rollo.

At least you now know what they are looking at, although it may not make it much easier for you.

Thanks for the update. At least you know (roughly) what the problem is.

Thanks for letting us know.

This is all very painful for you but at least it has moved on and you now know at least something.

update:

I saw the case officer this morning. She was friendly but quite properly kept her cards close. The CID are aware of the issue of a possible incorrect application of morphine as an important factor. The medics want to declare "pneumonia" as cause of death. I saw her a few hours before she died when she was breathing normally without oxygen etc and no obvious symptoms of pneumonia.

Signed off my statement and that was that.

Rollo I have only just logged on and read about your mother. I have often read your posts where you have mentioned her. To me she sounded a brave formidable and strong lady. I hope that you can get the current situation resolved soon. I wonder what she would have made of it?

Stay strong.

Thinking of you today Rollo, hope things become clearer today. Take care, we're all with you.

Rollo, not too long to wait now until your meeting with the CID. I really hope that you will be given the answers needed. It seems to have been a very long and lonely road that you have been forced to travel.
I hope that the circumstances surrounding your Mother's passing will become clearer sooner rather than later. Remember to take good care of yourself at this stressful time

Curiouser & Curiouser. Let’s hope you can get some sort of answer. If you’re told that what they discuss with you is confidential, just say something to that effect on the thread & we won’t pry.

You can be reassured that everyone is supporting you. After all, disagreements aside, you’re ‘one of us’ & we ‘look after our own’.

I really hope that the CID officer can give you some information that will, at the very least, give you some answers to the dreadful situation that you find yourself in, Rollo.
You may then understand why there is a delay in being able to offer you a provisional funeral date

<3

Update:

I have a meeting with the CID officer in charge of the case Saturday morning.
The Coroner remains a mine of no information beyond telling the undertaker that no, he won't be releasing the body any time soon and no, he cannot give a funeral date to pencil in.

As a family we have been lucky to have experienced very few early deaths and even the oldies go on and on and on .... so we don't have much of a fund of experience. Where that experience does exist it is too tender to ask.

Patience is not something I have much of when dealing with bureaucracies so the advice and history posted here have been very helpful. Thank you.

My brother died very suddenly back in 1990, and we came across the "jurisdiction" problem.

We knew he had a bad heart, was due to go into hospital for exploratory tests to see which of 3 procedures would be done. He went on a weekend break with his wife and collapsed.

The paramedics said he was probably dead before he hit the ground, but had to take him to a hospital.

Turned out the hotel was in one coroner's jurisdiction, the hospital where he was declared dead was in another, and his home and doctors were in a third. "they" kept telling my sis-i-l that they didn't know where the inquest would be held.

She was eventually issued the coroner's report 9 days after his death, and she had to walk it through the Registry Office, get the death certificate, and then get the Funeral Director to finish his arrangements, and notify relations and friends.

It was a good job that I had arranged to go back for 10 days ........ this all happened on my 8th day, we held his funeral the day before I had to fly back.

It really is unsatisfactory the poor communication, delays and errors that occur in these situations. No coroner involved but when MIL passed away 2 years ago in a small hospital 20 miles away, we could not get a death cert for a week because she died over a Bank Holiday and the doctor wouldn't be in to sign the papers till then. When 95 year old FIL died 6 months later, he had been in and out of hospital after various falls at the care home he was in (2 kinds of dementia diagnosed). Despite my OH repeatedly asking to see someone each time he visited after one admission, no-one ever seemed to be around and all a nurse told him was that his father had a chest infection. It was when OH saw the discharge notice at the home after his father was discharged that he read that his father had pneumonia and had had 2 heart attacks while he was in hospital. You would think that those events in a 95 year old man would have prompted someone to let his family know!

One good thing Rollo is that, as well as any records you kept yourself, you expressed your concerns not just at the hospital, but at the time on here. It does give a bit of weight to your assessment of the situation that you posted it publicly, and as it was happening, should you decide to take any case against the hospital further.

So many people don't, because it it just too much to deal with as well as dealing with the grief, and the immediate practicalities. Only you know how that will sit with you. Whatever happens do not take the burden of guilt on yourself, you did your best, we can all see that. It's that guilt that 'I should have done more' that drags one into a pit.

Rollo, first of all my condolences to you and your family upon the sad loss of your Mother.

My eldest sister died from mesothelioma mid February 2010; however, a death certificate was not issued for a very long time. I'm not sure if her son may have been given an 'interim death certificate' (if I understand correctly, and I don't recall him thus saying) so she could be cremated.
Thankfully, he did send me a copy of her full death certificate to which I have just referred. Remarkably, it was dated mid November 2011, 21 months after her death. That's a very long time indeed!
The informant was a certificate from the assistant deputy coroner for the district. The inquest (over which he presumably presided) was dated in late October 2011, three weeks before the death certificate was issued.
From what little I was told and understand, this delay may have been the result of an inquiry regarding asbestos. My sister's exposure to it is stated as the cause of her death.
I have wondered since where she could have been exposed to asbestos!! Sadly, I'll never know and I'm the last of our family.

The above really won't help you but there may well be some underlying cause for this delay that you are unaware. It would be really nice (and courteous) if the appropriate officials responded to you so you have some idea of this dreadful delay.
It is really unacceptable and is the last thing one needs at this sad time.

Take care.
Barry

Rollo, you do right by sitting tight.

It sounds as though the Coroner is not acting hastily so, although it's a bit of an ordeal for you, perhaps he/she is being thorough as coroners ought to be.

May you get peace of mind soon.

What is driving me nuts is not so much the delay but the possibility of a cover up and others suffering a similar fate. I am not blind.

I shall now wait for a while and see what crawls out from under the stones.

Thank you all for your support, it helps.

Worry about what you can alter, if it's out of your hands try to relax and keep calm. Wearing yourself out on something you can't alter is detrimental to you, your health and your family.

I know what it's like waiting to hear when a body is to be released - it's so frustrating but it's not in your power to alter things. It's like the world's on hold but you'll get there.

Thinking of you :-) <3