In France, only doctors can pronounce someone dead, not coroners or pathologists or nurses as in many other countries. Only doctors. With a growing shortage of physicians, especially in rural areas, that means the families of those who die at home may have to wait hours or even days for their loved ones to be pronounced dead. And by law, the body can’t be removed from the home until a physician pronounces death, so the families have to keep the bodies until a doctor arrives. The problem has grown so severe, The New York Times reports, that one town has banned people from dying at home.
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