Floridians in uproar after state birth and death certificate system collapses

MIAMI DADE COUNTY, Florida. – Many Florida residents are experiencing delays in obtaining civil status documents.

We’re talking about the state’s online system for vital statistics, birth certificates and death records. The system crashed on Thursday and was still down on Wednesday morning nearly a week later, sending establishments like funeral homes into turmoil.

Late Wednesday afternoon, Local 10 News received a response from the Florida Department of Health, which said there had been “temporary outages of the online vital statistics system due to a possible cyber incident.”

The statement continued: “The Department is coordinating with law enforcement and all relevant stakeholders.” AND: “All affected parties will be notified once a full assessment of the situation is available. Most Department systems and services remain operational without disruption.”

The situation has disrupted the sensitive business of funeral homes and cremation companies.

Without a death certificate, bodies cannot be cremated.

Without the online system that quickly connected funeral homes with doctors’ offices and the health department to enable efficient filing, signing and issuance of death certificates, the process has stalled.

Some certificates are experiencing delays and others may not 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 reporting to the health department, it can take two to three weeks … or longer,” said Terry Wright of Wright & Young Funeral Home. “Some families need the death certificates because they have insurance issues, others have issues with bank accounts, mutual funds or are trying to resolve loose ends in family matters. Death certificates are essential when dealing with the death of a loved one.”

There is no indication as to when the system will be operational again.