Often if you ring the surgery out of hours you are directed to an out of hours service and they may advise, nut I wanted his own doctor to declare death.
quite right, you call 999, the crew of the ambulance will call a doctor, he will confirm the death, and then an undertaker will be called to remove the body!....seems a drawn out procedure, but that's how it usually works!...............
even if dead you need to ring them so paramedics can confirm death. Carers where i work come into this situation alot and even if they find a person who is so obviously dead they are 'supposed' to try and resusitate until paramedics arrive.
Please can anyone tell me what checks are done to confirm that someone has died?
I was with my uncle recently as he passed away. I knew he had died and so did the two district nurses who I called into the room, but they asked me to leave the room while they "carried out the necessary checks".
I imagine they'd listen for a heartbeat or a pulse, but is there anything else that they do?
I am sorry if I misread the meaning of the question, I took it to be an elderly person who maybe had a terminal illness and was therefore speaking just from personal experience, sorry.
Yes Wolfy, thats what we did when an old aunt died, Ambulance crew said they cannot pronounce death it must be a doctor even if the person had been dead for a while. They called police then they called doc etc.
4get, I know, shouldn't be that way!.........when life has obviously expired, no one should be expected to try to recusitate..........our rule was that if there was a sign that the demise was very recent, then we should try!............but once you start, you cannot stop until a paramedic arrives to take over, if however the demise was obviously was not recent, then we did not start at all!........good practice!.......
I'm sure I read somewhere recently that police had to wait for a doctor to pronounce someone dead, even though the person in question had been decapitated.............