TAMPA, Fla — We are following through on a story we first told you about earlier this week on a state-wide system failure at the Florida Department of Health which is delaying the process of death certificates.
We're now learning the impact this is having on religious traditions surrounding burials.
"For our more observant families, it's not uncommon for us to have a same-day funeral even locally to where we may receive a call in the morning and have the funeral that afternoon," Charles Segal the owner of Segal Funeral Home explained.
However, without a death certificate plans are put on pause and now Segal worries certain Jewish tradition could be compromised.
"People that are more observant Orthodox Jews of which is a growing sect within our community, they still want to adhere to those traditions very, very rigidly," Segal explained.
Grieving families are in limbo and those working to bridge the gap between death and closure are left scrambling.
"We basically got an email that said, here's a blank death certificate, here's a blank permit, use these going forward, but there was really no instruction like, does it have to be original signatures? Do we have to hand deliver this to the doctor?" Chappell manager Tiffany Larson added.
Larson said she's now fighting against time and human error as they've been told to certify death certificates manually.
"It's been a lot of trial and error of kind of completing things, taking them to the health department and then getting rejected at the health department because we faxed it when we're supposed to do it this way or the doctor forgot one little part on there, which normally in the system, it would flag the doctor," Larson explained.
Segal said the delay in death certificates is now creating a major backlog for mourning families trying to move on.
"In addition to the death certificate, it also notifies social security. It also is the way that we get approval for cremation or in Hillsborough county, shipment out of the state of Florida," Segal added.
Meanwhile, Larson said she doesn't think this method is sustainable as other funeral homes warn families it could take up to three weeks for some things to be processed.
"They want answers. They want to know why there's been a delay with getting their death certificates, why there's been a delay with the burial... We're doing everything we can to get you what you need and to look after your loved one," Segal said.
A state report says hundreds of frail elderly nursing home residents were stacked side by side, head to toe in a small church with no working air conditioning or refrigerator during Hurricane Helene.
