The Director-General of Health can order a post-mortem examination if someone's death might be due to a notifiable disease. You need to know that a notifiable disease is one that has to be reported to the authorities, and a post-mortem examination is when a doctor checks a body after someone has died. The Director-General of Health can do this if they want to find out more about the death to stop the disease from spreading.

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This page was last updated on 24 May 2025

View the original legislation for this page at https://legislation.govt.nz/act/public/1986/0120/latest/link.aspx?id=DLM307245.

77: Medical officer of health may enter premises, or

"Health workers can visit your home to check for infectious diseases"

79: Isolation of persons likely to spread infectious disease, or

"Keeping others safe from infectious diseases by isolating sick people"

Part 3Infectious and notifiable diseases

78Director-General of Health may order post-mortem examination

If the death of any person is suspected to have been due to a notifiable disease and the facts relating to the death cannot with certainty be ascertained without a post-mortem examination, or if it is desirable for preventing the occurrence or spread of a notifiable disease that the facts relating to the death of any person should be ascertained, the Director-General of Health may order a post-mortem examination of the body of the deceased person to be made by a medical practitioner.