Recommended Practice based on International Guidelines
Sri Lanka
Legal Analysis
Form J in Births and Deaths Registration Act is the Certificate of Cause of Death that is required by law to be completed by a medical person who attended the decedent. However, this form is no longer in use. In practice, Form B33 is used by medical officers and hospitals to certify terminal, contributory and underlying causes of death.
The Form B33 used by medical professionals to certify cause of death contains only Frame A of the WHO MCCD. Even though Form B33 instructions mandate that this form be filled out for all neonatal and maternal deaths, it does not contain Frame B of the WHO MCCD Form, which includes "other medical data", "manner of death", "place of occurrence of external cause", foetal/infant death, and maternal death information. All of this information is required for statitics purposes and for accurate ICD coding.