"Better patient handling at time of death"

My father passed away in Westmead Hospital in a ward, the hospital staff already deemed he wouldn't live long so asked my mother and I to stay close. My mother and I were with him until he breathed his last breath and we were mostly left alone as we could not find our nurse. Once he had died we had to look for a nurse to notify them that we 'think' he had died as he wasn't breathing anymore. We were told they would call a doctor for time of death and I believe we would be given four hours to sit with his body and then once again we were left on our own with his body. I believe it was 45 minutes before a doctor appeared to pronounce an official time of death (45 minutes later). Then we were again left to wait not knowing what to do. 

Our biggest concern for him was that his body be cleaned and treated well and taken to the right place before we could leave him and before rigamortis set in, but I believe staff were scarce because they were giving us time to grieve for four hours. The whole thing didn't sound right to me so I asked another nurse to please help us because we didn't want him still lying in that hospital bed, dead and with no one attending to him or doing anything to clean or prepare his body and we couldn't just sit with him for hours waiting and not knowing what we were waiting for. This nurse was more helpful and called the hospital morgue. They arrived 30 minutes later, and didn't really clean his body very well in my opinion. Just wet, wrapped, taped and labelled and gave us time to say a last goodbye before they closed the body bag then we waited until attendants arrived and watched his body be carried to a lift before we felt comfortable enough to leave him. 

The entire nature of his illness, treatment and untimely death were already quite distressing even horrific for us to deal with given that his rapid decline happened within a four week period whilst at hospital, so to then have to wander around the ward trying to find out what will happen to his body and what we are supposed to do next was, I felt, unbelievably distressing.

It would be really good if staff in wards know what the correct procedure is in handling a patient death and if they could clearly communicate that to patient families that would make things less distressing. He may have been just another patient body to them but to those who loved and knew him he was a much-loved father, husband, grandfather and community leader and I believe he deserved far more respect, dignity and compassion in the handling of his death.