The South East Regional Health Authority (SERHA) has sought to clarify the circumstances under which the Victoria Jubilee and Kingston Public hospitals were in the process of burying the bodies of some babies.

SERHA says preliminary reports from the Senior Medical Officer for Victoria Jubilee indicate that the babies died over a period of time, however there were delays in the issuing of the requisite burial documents, which allows for the bodies to be released to the funeral home for burial.

The cause for delays varies and includes the absence of parents from scheduled post mortems, which is required for a burial order to be issued as well as delays in decision of parents to take custody of the body of stillbirth babies.

SERHA says the policy governing the burial of babies dictates that when parents fail to be present at post mortems, the hospital takes responsibility for the burial of the body.

It says some mothers wish to take custody of the bodies of their babies for burial.

To facilitate their grieving and decision making process, the hospital will wait up to 30 days before the state engages alterative measures in order to proceed with a burial.

The funeral home contracted by the hospital to carry out these burials does not collect the bodies until arrangements have been finalised for burial, which can result in an accumulation of the bodies at the morgue.

Based on preliminary reports from the hospitals, 65 babies were removed from the morgue on Friday, November 27.

These include 38 stillbirths and 27 neonatal deaths.

This removal would have been at the end of administrative processing to allow the state to remove these bodies.

The report also indicates none of the neonatal deaths were as a result of a bacterial outbreak.

SERHA says the administration of the hospitals recognises the sensitivity related to the death of babies and wishes to assure the public that the removal of these bodies was a natural and routine process and not as a result of anything untoward.

SERHA adds that the Senior Medical Officer is completing a report to be submitted to the Board Chairman and the Ministry of Health has been informed on the matter.