Staying at the institute: legal and financial aspects

Once the scientific work has been completed, the body of the deceased must, by law, be buried or cremated.
The donation of a body to Science is a donation made free of charge and does not involve any remuneration for the deceased or his family. In the pledge form, the donor specifies that the donation is made free of charge and that - as a general rule - the funeral at the end of the work will be paid for by the family. When the deceased has no family, the CPAS takes over.
Financially, the University takes over the cost of all operations inherent to the research and teaching work. As a temporary measure and depending on its budget, the University currently allocates a lump-sum subsidy to cover the costs of transferring the body to the University so that this duty does not constitute an additional cost for the family of the deceased.
Since the burial or cremation of the body at the end of the work is a legal obligation, the abandonment of the body at the University is not possible. The registrar of the municipality of Woluwe-Saint-Lambert, where the Faculty of Medicine is located, regularly checks the entry and exit books of the bodies and, if necessary, takes measures with the person in charge of the laboratory to ensure that the legal prescriptions are respected.
Also, in accordance with the Civil Code, the body must be transported to the laboratory in a hearse and coffin, except when the death has occurred at the Saint-Luc University Clinics. In this case, the body will be transported by us.