The Anguilla House of Assembly sat on Monday, October 20, and among a number of bills to which it gave approval was the Cremation Bill, 2014, which was given its second and third readings. The legislation was piloted through the House by Attorney General, Mr Rupert Jones.
“Mr Speaker, I rise to fully and unquestionably support the Cremation Bill,” Mr Edison Baird, Elected Member for Road North, and the first speaker, said. “I believe that this Bill is very important for certain reasons … and it is very important because the Anguillian society is changing and will eventually become a cosmopolitan society.
“I support this Bill too because our burial grounds, up and down this island, are under serious pressure. The public burial ground at Sandy Ground has a few years more left; the Methodist burial ground at South Hill also has a few more years left; and in The Valley areas the burial grounds are also under considerable pressure. The Methodist burial ground at West End is also under serious pressure so, somewhere along the lines, these Churches, and the Government of Anguilla, have to take stock of the absence of burial space. No longer can we push back. Land will have to be purchased or acquired. The crematorium offers an alternative form of burial.”
Mr Baird observed that the Ebola virus, which had made its way from Africa to the United States, could eventually reach the Caribbean area. He quoted an authority as saying that Ebola patients who died should be cremated and buried properly in a medically-sealed casket; and he stressed that Anguilla had to be prepared to deal with such kinds of disease.
The former Minister of Health expressed his personal view that two licences should be issued for separate crematoriums in Anguilla. “One of these licences should be issued to Rey’s Funeral Home, and with the specification that the crematorium must be housed in his facilities at George Hill – nowhere else,” he stated. “I also believe that a crematorium licence should be issued to Two Sons Funeral Home at North Hill, and that the crematorium should be housed in the funeral facilities at North Hill – and nowhere else.”
Mr Baird also said that his personal view was that Government should place a moratorium on the issuing of crematorium licences for a period of twenty years. “I also believe that given the small size of the population, that the Government should direct its mind towards prohibiting the issuing of any more funeral home licences for a period of time to be determined.”
Parliamentary Secretary, Mr Haydn Hughes, agreed with Mr Baird on the passage of the Bill to allow crematorium operations in Anguilla. He also endorsed Mr Baird’s advice that there was a need for Anguilla to be Ebola ready.
“Our capable Ministry of Health has already presented a prepared Ebola plan,” he noted. “Be that as it may, I am confident that Ebola will not reach our shores. I am very confident of that because [while] this virus impacts anybody and everybody, and the fact that it is so contagious…, the efforts to eradicate this disease will be doubled and re-doubled. Lots of resources will be put behind the eradication of this disease.”
Mr Hughes added that the disease could have been eradicated before if the Western World had put its resources behind it.
Another speaker was Opposition Leader Mr McNiel Rogers who, among other matters, stressed the importance of health personnel monitoring crematorium operations in Anguilla to ensure that the required guidelines were observed.
