Delta Hospital. photo credit: Fraser Health

Vancouver radio station CKNW recently brought another case to light of a local funeral home removing a body from the morgue of Delta Hospital without the family’s permission.

Sherry Smallwood told senior reporter Charmaine de Silva that she never hired Delta Funeral Home to take the body of her father, Tom Smallwood, who died June 16.

She says she just phoned the funeral home to check prices of funeral services and later got a call from the funeral home, saying “Oh we just want you to know that we’ve picked up your father from Delta Hospital from the morgue and he’s with us now.”

She was furious that the funeral home took her father’s body without the proper signed documentation.

Fraser Health Authority later admitted protocol wasn’t followed and apologized. The full story is online here.

Consumer Protection BC has laws and regulations concerning the operations of the funeral industry in B.C., including a law that a body cannot be removed from a morgue by a funeral home without a signed consent form.

To learn more about funeral and cremation consumer rights, go to www.funeralrightsbc.ca