When Someone Dies at Home: The First Hour Nobody Tells You About
In the Netherlands the body may stay at home for up to six business days. The hardest part is the first sixty minutes — when nothing urgent has to happen, but it feels like everything should.
The phone call you didn't want to make is the only call you actually have to make. If someone has just died at home in the Netherlands, you do one thing: you ring the doctor. Everything else can wait.
On weekdays, that means the deceased's huisarts — the family doctor whose number is on the practice card. At night, on weekends or on holidays, you call the huisartsenpost, the on-duty service. The national number is 0800-1515.
You do not need to do anything else. Do not call a funeral home. Do not notify anyone. Just wait for the doctor.
What to say on the phone
Many people freeze. The Dutch sentence is short and works in any tone of voice:
"Mijn partner / vader / moeder is zojuist overleden."
My partner / father / mother has just died.
You can also speak in English — every huisartsenpost dispatcher is trained for it. Give your address and the name of the deceased. That's the entire script.
The waiting
The doctor usually arrives within one to three hours. In that time:
- Do not move the body. The examination — lijkschouw — has to happen in place.
- You can stay close. You can step out of the room. There is no right way.
- If there is one person you can call to be with you, call them now. Not to organise — to sit.
What the doctor does
The doctor performs the lijkschouw — a mandatory external examination — and determines the cause of death. In more than nine cases out of ten the cause is natural, and they issue two documents on the spot:
| Document | What it's for |
|---|---|
| A-verklaring | The medical death certificate. The funeral home needs this. |
| B-formulier | A sealed envelope for statistics (CBS). You don't open it. |
The body can stay
By Dutch law, the body may remain at home for up to six business days. There is no rush. Many families keep the body at home for one to three days for thuisopbaring — a home viewing. This is an old tradition that has been quietly returning in the last decade.
The funeral director (uitvaartondernemer) will help with cooling — usually a cooling blanket or plate. Air conditioning helps. Dry ice is an option. None of this needs to be solved tonight.
It is night. Go to sleep if you can. The next decisions belong to the morning.
What we wish we'd known
Three things we heard from almost everyone we spoke to:
- The phone won't stop ringing — until you turn it off. You can. Family will understand later.
- You don't have to choose a funeral home tonight. If there's an uitvaartverzekering, ring the insurer first; they assign one.
- Eat something. The shock blunts hunger. The next 72 hours need a body that ate.
The next article in this series walks through the full timeline — from the doctor's visit to the akte van overlijden, to the first call with the funeral home. You can read it whenever you're ready.