§ 5202 - Death certificate; duties of physician
§ 5202. Death certificate; duties of physician
(a) The physician who is last in attendance upon a deceased person during his last illness shall immediately fill out a certificate of death on a form prescribed by the commissioner. If he is unable to state the cause of death, he shall immediately notify the physician, if any, in charge of the patient's care, who shall fill out the certificate. If neither physician is able to state the cause of death, the provisions of section 5205 of this title shall apply. The physician may with the consent of the funeral director, delegate to said funeral director the responsibility of gathering data for and filling out all items except the medical certification of cause of death. All entries, except signatures, on the certificate shall be typed or printed. Such forms contain the following questions:
(1) Was the deceased a veteran of any war?
(2) If so, of what war?
(b) When death occurs to an admitted patient in a hospital and it is impossible to obtain a death certificate from an attending physician before burial or transportation, any physician who has access to the facts and can certify that death is not subject to the provisions of section 5205, may complete and sign a preliminary report of death on a form supplied by the commissioner of health. The town clerk or his deputy shall accept this report and issue a burial-transit permit. This preliminary report of death may be destroyed six months after a death certificate has been filed. This does not relieve the attending physician from the responsibility of completing a death certificate and delivering it to the funeral director within twenty-four hours after death.
(c) If a dead body must be removed immediately and a death certificate or preliminary report cannot be obtained, the town clerk, deputy or law enforcement officer may issue a temporary burial-transit permit which shall expire forty-eight hours after issuance. This does not relieve the attending physician from the responsibility of completing a death certificate and delivering it to the funeral director within twenty-four hours after death. Upon receipt of the death certificate, the funeral director shall apply for and the issuing authority shall issue a burial-transit permit to replace the temporary permit. (Amended 1959, No. 329 (Adj. Sess.), § 27, eff. March 1, 1961; 1963, No. 102, § 2, eff. May 22, 1963; 1969, No. 265 (Adj. Sess.), § 10; 1979, No. 142 (Adj. Sess.), § 26; 1997, No. 40, § 22b.)