Funeral delays feared as Waterford hospital to end coroner-requested autopsies

Consultant pathologists at University Hospital Waterford will stop performing coroner-requested autopsies from January, raising fears of funeral delays and service gaps

Coroner-requested autopsies are conducted after deaths which may be suspicious, accidental, or unexpected, as well as maternal deaths. Picture: iStock 

Up to 700 coroner-requested autopsies conducted each year in Waterford are under threat from January, with lengthy delays expected in returning bodies to families for funerals.

Consultant pathologists at University Hospital Waterford will withdraw from conducting coroner-requested autopsies at the morgue in the hospital from January 1.

It is unknown who will supply the service thereafter.

Coroner-requested autopsies include deaths which may be suspicious, accidental, or unexpected, as well as maternal deaths.

In a letter to Tipperary South Fine Gael TD Michael Murphy, University Hospital Waterford chief executive Ben O’Sullivan said the hospital told the Department of Justice last November that the consultant pathologists at the hospital “would not be in a position to provide coroner-requested postmortems from January 2026”.

He added: “In a recent workforce planning exercise, the Department of Justice, in conjunction with the Faculty of Pathology, Royal College of Physicians of Ireland, have indicated that the coroner’s postmortem workload in University Hospital Waterford requires four whole-time equivalent pathologists dedicated uniquely to this service.”

He said the hospital is “currently significantly understaffed” in terms of consultant pathologists. 

He said HSE diagnostic workloads indicate a need for 18 whole-time equivalent surgical pathologists.

Tipperary South Fine Gael TD Michael Murphy said he is aware of a situation where the family of a young child had to wait for five days for the body to be released because of an autopsy delay. File picture: Sam Boal/Collins

Mr O’Sullivan said the laboratory has six consultants, with recruitment ongoing for a three further staff.

However, the hospital has twice been unsuccessful in recruiting for the laboratory, “largely because of the expected coroner’s postmortem commitments on top of an extremely busy diagnostic service”. Mr O’Sullivan warned: 

This position is unsustainable and HSE consultants no longer have the capacity to guarantee a service to the coroners.

Waterford is the latest hospital to be affected by the removal of the provision of coroner-requested autopsies. 

Similar moves also occurred at University Hospital Limerick and St James’s and the Mater in Dublin.

Mr O’Sullivan said there are “diverse and complex” reasons for the removal of the services at Waterford, including that HSE pathologists are primarily “concerned and occupied by diagnostic surgical pathology work in cancer diagnosis and tissue pathology and are struggling to sustain the current commitments to the coroners service”.

Shortage of pathologists 

He said there is a global shortage of “appropriately qualified pathologists willing to provide autopsy services”.

Mr O’Sullivan said that either coroner-requested autopsies will have to be provided elsewhere or the Department of Justice will have to source appropriately trained consultants.

Mr Murphy said he is aware of a situation where the family of a young child had to wait for five days for the body to be released because of an autopsy delay.

He said that a cliff-edge is fast approaching without a plan in place.

A response has been sought from the Department of Justice.