A Dunedin man says he was horrified to receive a letter this month from the Ministry of Justice asking if he wanted back a sample of blood taken from his wife's body when she died four years ago.
The man, who did not want to be identified, said he was shocked when he opened and read the letter.
"I was disgusted that they would do that. What on Earth would I want that back for?"
In some cases, pathologists are allowed at the time of the postmortem examination to retain body parts or bodily samples for further investigation.
After the discovery of the holding of babies' body parts at Green Lane Hospital, the regulations around that sort of body-part retention and return were updated in the Coroners Act 2006.
A Ministry of Justice spokesman said since June last year families had been asked before any postmortem examination if they would like any samples taken returned, or were comfortable with them being destroyed once analysed.
At the moment, the ministry was writing to the families of people from whom samples were taken for "quite a number of years" before that and there was no indication what was to be done with them, to ask what they wanted done with the samples.
"We are required by law to undergo this consultation, but apologise if anyone has found it upsetting," he said.
The Dunedin man said it would have been nice if that had been explained in the letter.
