Member for Cootamundra Stephanie Cooke has hit back at Member for Murray Helen Dalton, who said Ms Cooke and her government should get on with the job of solving the current autopsy crisis gripping rural and regional NSW.

At present, Newcastle is the home base for these procedures, meaning families and friends are having to wait up to six weeks to be able to have a funeral for their loved one.

Last month, Ms Cooke announced the formation of a high-level taskforce to review the coronial process in NSW.

But Mrs Dalton wasn't impressed, saying it was time for "real action" and not a taskforce.

This week in a letter to The Irrigator's editor, Ms Cooke said the taskforce was one initiative among several actions being taken by the government.

SEE MS COOKE'S LETTER HERE:

"I have been a loud advocate for families on this issue since my election, and I am proud of the government's action on what is an extremely complicated and difficult policy area to address," Ms Cooke said.

"If this isn't 'getting on with it', I'm not sure what is," she wrote.

"Delays in coronial autopsies are influenced by a number of factors. Perhaps the most challenging of these is the global shortage of forensic pathologists.

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"It takes at least 10 years of training to become a qualified forensic pathologist. NSW Health Pathology is actively recruiting overseas while also training its largest ever group of forensic pathologist registrar trainees."

However, Mrs Dalton maintains her firm stance that the government needs to come up with an urgent solution.

"There wasn't a problem until 2016, when the Liberals and Nationals decided to slash regional autopsy services and centralise them in Newcastle, Sydney and Wollongong," she said.

"Steph Cooke can come up with a million excuses, but her government never would've inflicted something so ruthless and heartless on Sydney people.

"Last month, I asked Health Minister Brad Hazzard if we'd get our autopsy services back.

"His response was to tell me centralising services in Sydney, Newcastle and Wollongong 'makes best use' of resources. We don't need a committee on this.

"We just want the government to give us back the services they stripped away."

Mrs Dalton suggested the government could fly in forensic pathologists who could also train local doctors.

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