ORLANDO, Fla. – Many Floridians are dealing with delays when it comes to obtaining vital records, according to a report from News 6 partner Local 10 in Miami.
We’re talking about the state’s online vital statistics system, birth certificates, death certificates, the system crashed on Thursday and was still inaccessible nearly a week later on Wednesday morning, sending places like funeral homes, scrambling.
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Late Wednesday afternoon, Local 10 News heard back from the Florida Department of Health which stated that there “have been temporary outages of the online Vital Statistics system following a potential cyber incident.”
The statement went on to say, “The Department is coordinating with law enforcement and all relevant stakeholders.” AND, “Any affected parties will be notified as a comprehensive assessment of the situation is completed. The majority of Department systems and services remain operational with no disruptions.”
The situation has disrupted the sensitive business of funeral homes and cremation services.
Bodies can’t be cremated without a death certificate.
Without the online system that quickly linked funeral homes to doctors’ offices and the health department for the sake of efficient filing, signing, and issuing death certificates, the process has stalled.
Some certificates are being delayed and others may not even be accessible if they were issued before Thursday’s outage.
“After the cat and mouse game between us and the doctor’s office and then we have to now run it to the health department, you may be talking, two, to three weeks...or longer,” said Terry Wright with Wright & Young Funeral Home. “Some of the families need the death certificates because they have situations as far as insurance policies, some of them have situations as far as bank accounts, mutual funds, they’re trying to tie up loose ends for family business. Death certificates are essential when it comes to the death of a loved one.”
There has been no indication as to when the system will be back up and running.
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