Bureaucratic "shortcomings" led to a man's family finding out he had been dead for a week only when they reported him missing to Victoria Police.
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Victoria Police confirmed the mix-up was their fault after they couldn't contact the man's next-of-kin to let them know he was in hospital, and then when he died so someone could formally identify his body.
The man, aged in his 50s, was brought to University Hospital Geelong after a heart attack on September 20 and died, but staff attempts to contact his next of kin were unsuccessful.
Superintendent Craig Gillard said even when the man's family reported him missing, police did not find him in their system for several hours.
"Clearly there's some shortcomings and I acknowledge that the family's been let down; this is not the level of service that we'd like to be known to provide," he told 3AW radio on Friday.
Supt Gillard said police tried to contact the man's family, but he wasn't known at the address the hospital had for him.
When he died, a different set of police officers tried to contact the family again, with no success.
A death report was then faxed to the coroner, but the man's name was not officially recorded as dead because he had not been formally identified.
"We couldn't do that because we hadn't notified the next of kin, and the identification process hadn't taken place. So that's where the gap lies," Supt Gillard said.
"So we've certainly reviewed the circumstances around this matter and identified our shortcomings.
"I've given an undertaking to ensure this doesn't happen again by improving our systems. There's some remedial work that we'll do in-house...and we'll look after that."
Supt Gillard says he has apologised to the man's family, while Premier Daniel Andrews has also done the same.
Another man told 3AW on Friday his family had endured a similar bungle.
Richard said his son had been in a car crash over the Easter long weekend and was taken to Latrobe Regional Hospital.
When the family called to check in on him, they were told he had been discharged, setting off a panic, when the man had actually been transferred to The Alfred Hospital for treatment.
Australian Associated Press