The Health Regulatory Entity considered of "special gravity" a corpse mix-up that occurred at the Local Health Unit of São José, in Lisbon. The regulator issued an instruction obliging the unit to reinforce body identification procedures.
The error in the corpse mix-up was not detected at the hospital's mortuary nor by the responsible funeral agency. Only during the viewing did the relatives discover the mix-up, which evidences serious failures in the verification protocols.
The ERS instruction aims to ensure that similar situations do not occur again, imposing stricter identification measures from the morgue to the delivery of the body to the family. The case exposed vulnerabilities in the corpse management process at that health unit.
