Date 11/05/2010

PRESENTATION DETAILS

Presentation to the Parliamentary Portfolio Committee (Department of Home Affairs)

Presented by; Mr. Alex Dibodu  
   &   Mr. Provin Mokwena
 
1. The Current Profile for Natural Death and Unknown causes of Death or Unknown Deceased Certification.

This elaboration is on the current course of action in place expected to be performed by compulsory stakeholders stated in the Birth and Death Registration Act No.51 Of 1992 and Regulations issued in terms of the Act, using the common Documents of Death Registration, the BI-1663/BI-1680 form, from The Department of Home Affairs.

When an individual dies at home of either a terminally ill reason or a natural death, the Doctor is required for death certification and funeral undertakers for burial arrangements. In the cases of unknown deaths the Medico Legal Laboratory is required for investigations.

When an individual dies in rural areas of either a terminally ill reason or a natural death’s the Tribal Authorities have the autonomy to declare such death without a Doctor and or an undertaker’s presents.

a)	The undertakers will use a copy of Death Registration Form to register the death of the dead body in his private mortuary.
b)	The Medico Legal Laboratory will use a copy of  Death Registration Form to register unknown dead body nor register the death of a known dead body with the unknown causes of death if not determined prior burial and will be stated (still under investigation) on the death notification form processed.
c)	Tribal Authority will use a Death Registration Form to register such case independently at their home.

2. Steps followed to register such deaths;

The Undertakers Procedure,
•	The Doctor is called to certify the body deceased and enlist the cause of death in column ‘G. Medical Certificate of Cause of Death’ of death registration form and complete his credentials in column ‘D.1 Certificate by Attending Medical Practitioner/Professional Nurse’ to assure as the doctor responsible.
•	The Undertaker will require a person to identify the dead person mainly the family member, also the details of that individual and his or her fingerprint will be completed in column ‘B. Particulars of Informant’ and of the death person and his or her fingerprint in column ‘A. Particulars of Deceased Individual’.
•	The Undertaker is required to complete a column ‘C. Particulars of Funeral Undertaker’ as the company in charge of such burial.
•	The regulation issued in terms of the act, requires the undertaker to submit the completed BI-1663 to a designated Home Affairs office for registration of the death and issuing of death certificate which must then be transmitted to the next of kin and the undertaker must register a burial order authorizing burial.

The Medico Legal Laboratory Procedure,
•	The Medico Legal Laboratory is a statutory body responsible for determining the causes of death through their investigations and, 
•	The Pathologist in charge will be required to complete column ‘D.2 Certificate by District Surgeon/Forensic Pathologist’ in the death registration form with the findings or may state that they are still investigating the cause to release the body to the family’s undertaker for burials in time or release the body to the officials to organize a paupers burials if not identified or not claimed by anyone after it has been identified for a longer period depending on the overloads in mortuaries.
•	The regulation issued in terms of the act, requires the Pathologist in charge to hand over the death registration of such cases to the Police Official in charge and may also issue a burial order authorizing burial.

The Tribal Authority Procedure;
•	The Tribal offices will be responsible of completing the document with or without stating the reason of death in the document processed.
•	The Tribal office has also the power to complete the form without the doctor or the funeral undertaker.
•	The regulation issued in terms of the Act, requires the Tribal Office to submit the document to the nearest police station to be forwarded to the Department of Home Affairs.

3. THE MARKED CHALLENGES 
Our current distress is fraud and inconvenience to all including the Funeral Undertakers, Doctors, the Public and the Family of the deceased, the safety of the documents of death and responsibility behind the processed document as this death documents is being used by many companies after it is registered at The Department of Home Affairs, some to process money for Insurances such as Road accident Fund and Life Cover Policies etc. These kind of fraud put identity status of all at risk and any falsified death document processed contaminates and put at risk the reliability data of Home Affairs National Identification System (HANIS).

Challenges Faced by the Current Process.
•	The Doctors certifying deaths in the country cannot be readily proven as a good standing legally registered Doctors in the death notification documents and also the Department of Home Affairs cannot trace facts of such information on any instance apart from producing a received copy at their branch office counter from their achieves.
•	Some Doctors collude with the undertakers for short cuts to certify death without being present or seeing the corpse for examination. This kind of Doctors says they have no time to visit mortuaries and there is no mechanism to prove their presents.
•	The Funeral Undertaker to bury the body cannot be readily verified if they exist or still operating as a company on any occasion by the Department of Home Affairs receiving and registering documents of that company as a  Funeral Practitioner Company.
•	There are no mechanisms in place to prove the present’s of the Informant at the undertakers or government mortuaries premises when a copy of death notice is registered.
•	There is no mechanism in place to match the correctness of the dead bodies’ names, identity number and their fingerprint before a death notice is registered as a true copy.
•	The Pathologist/District Surgeon investigating the cause of death have no means to revoke the processed document and amend the prior statement from still under investigation cause of death to the established cause of death after days or months of investigation. This also disadvantages the Statistic Compiler in use to truly reflect the actual state of affairs.
•	The are no mechanism in place to identify enormous piles of unknown dead bodies in Government Mortuaries countrywide on arrival, this means some will be identified by lucky family members searching every mortuary or the police investigating the case if there are reasons concluding that the person have been killed and this exercise takes time and sometimes the body will be given paupers burials before they are claimed due to lengthy periods stored at the mortuary.
•	The is no public search system to help the family find the missing dead in the Government Mortuaries, to also ensure relief of pressure that compel the mortuaries to give out paupers burials.
•	There is no coordinated approach to provide policy claims from insurance companies with verification portal of death copies that declared their client dead instantly to allow a relatively fast services to the claimant.

4. THE PROPOSED NEW INTEGRATED DEATH DECLARATION AGENCY MODEL

We propose a new electronic methods that will be in place to reverse the marked challenges of the current processes of death notification and certification of death, this will also add new ideal representation that assist the entire industry of death as a fact:- 

a) We envisage building the first database of the funeral practitioners companies per province to form;-  

 National Funeral Practitioners Database.
•	This database will organize and empower all Funeral Practitioners under one umbrella to process death information electronically, the choked access database will also facilitate in managing the out of control influx by the fraudulent practices and underhand manipulation conduct by some legal operating companies to the current overpowered processes.
•	We will require prove of health certification from Department of Health inspectors, registration of the company with Department of Trade and Industry, a proper establishment that has proper cold storage, equipments to bury the dead and or any affiliation with association when companies applying for electronic registration on our database. 
•	Three members of the funeral company will be required to be registered including their finger print captured for future bio-metric verification as the responsible electronic death notification document processors of that particular company. Training will be provided to enable them to participate in the mix application provided by our company.

b) The second database to build will be of the Government Mortuaries, affording them a platform that enables them vast electronic communications tools, which will also help out the public, companies and other Departments.

National Medico Legal Lab Database
•	This database will organize and empower all Medico Laboratories to process their unknown deaths and undisclosed causes of death registrations electronically, and enable the Forensic Pathologist at Government Mortuaries to revisit and modify the fore stated cause of death when an investigation has been completed.
•	They will have a “HANIS” link to request fingerprints identification of unknown dead bodies found on the streets etc.

•	This synchronization will furthermore use the identified records of dead bodies to assist the interlinked process of public search engine. It will be generally used by the people at some stage when they request information of missing family members suspected of being dead somewhere in the country. The Public will be afforded to send Identity number via their mobile phone to request information of missing people from all Government Mortuaries.

c) The third database will be of the Tribal Authorities in rural area that declare people deceased; they will be afforded an independent Personal Device Assistant (PDA) to process death documents electronically in remote areas.

National Tribal Authorities Database
•	Tribal Authorities will be registered to offer their communities electronic services that make their life easy. There will be no need for them to go to the Police Station or Home Affairs offices to register death; also their insurance claims of rural communities will be available for verification electronically.
•	The equipment in discussion will be useful even in areas that have no electricity connection or fix telephone lines as it uses a mobile network and its battery can also be charged using a car, generator and solar energy.

d) Health Professions Council of South Africa Database
These means the other new important verification link request will be finalized with the Health Professions Council of South Africa, which hosts a database of Health Practitioners in the country, to verify the professions details of Health Practitioners certifying people death on the system and close the gaps.

e) Department of Home Affairs Population Register
The very critical verification link to be maintained is with the custodians of death documents, The Department of Home Affairs, as the hosts of Home Affairs National Identification System (HANIS) will be the right platform to verify the details of dead bodies and informants in death documents on an interface. Having access to HANIS will also be of key impotence to the link of Government Mortuaries in request to identify unknown dead bodies in their possessions (NB; a secure access should be prescribed by the Department). This information will later be used for Public Search engine.

The above mentioned independent secured multilinked databases will be the platforms for all expected practices of the country to communicate for a compilation of digitized paperless death documents, also for informing the data that will be used for assisting the public in finding missing people presumed death in Government Mortuaries and verification of death certificates.

Practical Terms;-
•	The Funeral Undertakers, Medico Legal Laboratories and Tribal Authorities will process the completed death registration forms from their independent offices and sent them to our hosting system, in which there will be multiple verification portals supported by the fore mention databases to prove original existence of information and people responsible for such information.
•	The Health Practitioners information will be processed to the link of Health Professions Councils database to verify the status of the Health Professions declaring a body dead on the system.
•	Further verification and identification will be required from the secured link with Home Affairs National Identification System, for the details of the dead body and of the informant in the Death registration form. This will ensure right people are registered death.
•	The Department Of Home Affairs will send us Acknowledgement of receipt registration of death that will be sent back to the undertaker applied for such registration as an approved registration document.
•	Copy of death certificate will then be readily available on the system for print at any branch office of the Home Affairs Department.
•	The approved death documents can be verified on request by all including the insurance companies, law firms, credit accounts companies and other Departments.

Improvement Prospects:-
•	No declared death document without any trace of any ownership or responsibility.
•	No room for unregistered bogus practices will have access to register any person deceased whilst still alive on the choked databases.
•	Death information will be tested before someone’s Identity Document is being cancelled and their position changed to death status on the records of the Department.
•	Doctor’s professions will be protected from falsified declaration made by fraud practices as their action will be automated and tested.
•	Funeral Undertakers Company’s will be protected from fraud registration made by their company details and official stamps, because only registered members will process documents on the restricting database using restricting applications.
•	The Department of Home Affairs will be ensured clean and responsible information on the population register.
•	The status of citizens of this country will be protected from compromising actions of being declared dead whilst still alive.
•	Queuing at Home Affairs branches by undertakers to register piles of death documents will be thing of the past, as family members will have access to request a print out copy of a death certificate without any hassle at any branch office of Home Affairs.
•	A precise assistance to reduce over piling of dead bodies in Government Mortuaries and also helping the people to claim their dead family members in time before given paupers burials.
•	Training, skills transfer and job creation is on the table for these developments.

Financial Inference and Support Requested
We are of the view that should this project be appealing, Parliament should consider the financial implication of the required bio-metric equipments, training and database registration of the much needed Funeral Undertakers firms, they will need a once off  financial sponsor packages that will guarantee their participation and give us allowance to secure a loan.
•	Our plan requires no direct infrastructure development financial support from The Department of Home Affairs.
•	Funding is important part of the project but there is no specific need to panic as this is a self sustained development, with a funding model that require all stakeholders to fund their part of the connection through our independent databases, these databases will charge for processing documents.

•	The databases registration, training and equipments fees will assist in funding the first stage of the system development, so that when other stages of development continues, further buy in arrangements will be made with respective Departments to allow their specific role players a room to participate in the new model of death industry- e.g. The Department of Health responsible for Government Mortuaries.
•	The imperative support desired is being endorsed as the agent for electronic compilation death documents by The Department of Home Affairs. 
•	The endorsement by the Department will allow our company to afford all stakeholders a necessary platform to compile a digitized death registration electronically and these possibilities will be realized without any hefty infrastructure investment from State coffers.
Closure
We hope the Department of Home Affairs Parliamentary Portfolio Committee will share our vision of introducing this new open technology system for all stakeholders together with Government, Business and the Public to be a complementary system to the WHO AM I ON LINE processes in place etc. 
Our open technology system will charge access to all stakeholders and the various databases will charges for only membership.
We are the first profit making company to take a valuable risk of proposing and building a free technology infrastructure to Home Affairs Department death documents processes, as well as share the responsibility with other role players for a sustainable and responsible future.
This character shows a will and caring endeavor in assisting all the People, Companies and Departments depending in the death documents and processes.

BA-Pele Trading cc would like to convey our gratitude to the Honorable Members of Parliaments in the Committee of Home Affairs and fellow staff members for the given opportunity to present our proposal. 

We thank you...