Danny Woods – who is also a National Funeral Directors Association NSW representative – maintains that people regularly ask him why investigations into unexpected deaths occur in Newcastle when Wagga has its own facility.

Mr Woods said it extends the grieving period for families who seek answers and adds to their uncertainty.

“Newcastle is five or six hours away,” he said.

“It puts a hold on funeral arrangements and can hold it up for a week or more. You can’t know when the post-mortem will take place.”

However, NSW Health Pathology on Thursday responded to Advertiser questions and said it was unlikely future coronial post-mortems would be conducted locally.

“The level of technology, and techniques now used (such as forensic CT scanning which requires specialist interpretation) along with advanced post-mortem practices mean these need to be conducted in the specialised centres where there is specialist peer support,” a spokeswoman said.

The spokeswoman said NSW Health did provide a training service to up-skill anatomical pathologists, of which there is one employed at the base hospital, but few undergo additional training and assessment for the specialist role.

She said government departments were investigating ways to see that deceased were returned to their families “as quickly as possible” and post-mortem exams were conducted within 24 to 72 hours on arrival to Newcastle.

Member for Wagga Daryl Maguire said he was sympathetic of grieving families.

But Mr Maguire agreed the lack of multi-skilled pathologists was a roadblock to local coronial post-mortems.

“A quicker fix would be to look at the system currently and see if it can be streamlined to make the distances and transportation more efficient,” he said.

“Perhaps speeding the process is a way we could look at it.”