Latest update April 19th, 2024 12:59 AM
Dec 11, 2014 Editorial
Informing relatives of the death of a loved one is never an easy task. If anything, the officials responsible for this unwelcome duty are expected to display care and sensitivity in very distressing circumstances.
However, in the Guyana context no great effort seems to be made by some medical workers and law enforcement personnel to exercise a certain restraint when passing on bad news. Reading or listening to stories of how a mother, wife, husband or father has been notified of the death of a close family member leaves one in a state of amazement as to what training if any these people receive.
For far too long the Guyanese people have allowed bad standards and unprofessional conduct to become the norm; acceptable even. People working in certain professions must be trained in the art of delivering bad news, particularly death notification.
Professionals in more than name must seek to acquire the necessary value-added skills to make them more proficient at what they do. Medical and law enforcement personnel must develop their capacity to act appropriately and in keeping with established death notification policy and procedures. It would be interesting to know if these even exist in the local police training manuals.
It ought not to stop there because of the way life is evolving. Refresher courses in these important areas should be mandatory if organisations are not to be seen as abjuring roles and functions that are intrinsic to their relevance.
For the mother of Benedict Bacchus to have been called by the police and told that her son had been killed in a highway accident speaks to the level of insensitivity – albeit spawned by ignorance to which family members are subjected from time to time.
No thought seems to have been given to the woman’s state of health; whether she is hypertensive, or suffering from a heart condition, just a bald message that she had just lost her son; a moment that will forever be imprinted in her memory.
Our professionals must be trained to deliver news which will forever change someone’s life. Therefore it is imperative that a policy with serious consideration as to who, when, and by what means a death notification should be delivered should be formulated with due regard to the impact of critical injuries or sudden death on loved ones.
Among the factors which may be looked at are seniority of the notifying officer; who should give releases to the media regarding the identity of the injured or deceased; how notifying officers are expected to conduct themselves; to what death benefits are the survivors entitled (in line-of-duty cases) etc.
In as much as care and sensitivity should be exercised when communicating with close relatives the notifying officer should avoid conveying a false sense of hope in an already hopeless situation. The probability for resentment and irreparable mental anguish is very high in these cases.
The quality of the initial contact with a survivor is likely to make a significant impact on the way people process traumatic information and therefore no effort should be spared to ensuring that everything is got just right in terms of roles and responsibilities and the language and tone of the message.
Having examined some of the issues surrounding general death notification it is perhaps appropriate to look at the importance of conveying such sad news to survivors of ranks who die in the line of duty. Every aspect pertinent to the approach employed when dealing with members of the public should apply in circumstances involving serving police ranks.
Moreover, policy and procedures must not be only observable in the breach, but practiced giving effective meaning to the concept of a caring administration.
It is to be hoped that the chaplaincy training which Guyana Police Force officers participated in recently, would have covered such an important topic of death notification accompanied by relevant role play and settings.
Information communicated about the death of a loved one must be seen for what it is – a life defining moment.
Please share this to every Guyanese including your house cats.
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