Funeral Home Sends Wrong Body to Funeral

A Melbourne woman is fuming and a funeral parlour has been left “mortified” after the wrong bodies were delivered to two open-coffin viewings last week. A caller to Radio 3AW, Anna, this morning said the wrong body was delivered to her aunt’s viewing at Thornbury Greek Orthodox Church in Melbourne’s inner north. Her aunt, meanwhile, was taken to another viewing at Footscray. Victoria Funerals has apologized for the error and said the family had not been charged the estimated $6600 funeral cost. But Anna said she was still angry.

She said the error also caused another family on the other side of the city to receive the wrong body.

“I feel very badly for them, we know (my aunt) ended up in Footscray and they said that she was there for 15 minutes before this family discovered they had the wrong person too,” she said.

A spokeswoman for Victoria Funerals said today the switch was caused by a “breakdown in procedures”.

When family members raised the alarm, the mistake was rectified within half an hour, she said.

It was the first time in the business’ 18-year history that such a mistake had occurred.

The spokeswoman said the owners of the Brunswick funeral home were “very, very sorry”.

“They’re mortified,” she said.

“It is a gross breakdown in procedures and it’s something that they’re going to ensure never happens again.”

Source: 3AW.com.au