The government of St Vincent and the Grenadines is moving ahead with plans to regulate the operations of funeral service providers within the state.
Prime Minister Dr. Ralph Gonsalves speaking on WEFM Friday 15th June, 2018, said he has received permission from cabinet to instruct the Attorney General to look at regulations for such entities.
Models from around the Caribbean region and elsewhere would be looked at by the Attorney General with the aim of fashioning the new regulations to govern their operations.
Gonsalves said due to the frequency of complaints about funeral homes his government has been forced to take action.
“It is such an intense competition between them, for instance, if the body of a deceased person unintentionally ends up at X home, but the family wants to use Y home, X who got the body first will not release until the family pays a fee for any services done”.
“Another bad practice was where funeral homes would have different agents at the hospital among staff members to alert them when somebody dies or is about to die, so they can make the first move”.
Gonsalves said such is “utter disrespect”, because the location of funeral homes is not a secret, and persons can make arrangements without harassment, patrolled or bullied.
He said along with the above actions, and the cost of caskets which has gone through the roof, the government will now have to put legislation in place.
