The Irish government is setting up an inquiry into the practice of retaining body organs at postmortem examination without the consent of the patient's relatives, following allegations that the procedure was widespread in the 1970s and early 1980s.
The Faculty of Pathology at the Royal College of Physicians of Ireland reacted quickly to revelations concerning organ retention without consent by introducing new postmortem consent procedures last month in which the next of kin can specify which organs can be removed.
Full details on the establishment of the inquiry are expected within days. The minister of health, Michael Martin, wants an efficient, fast moving inquiry that has the power to compel witnesses to attend, and he wants documents to be discovered. He also wants to minimise the distress of parents whose children were subjected to organ removal without consent during hospital postmortem examinations.
Maternity and children's hospitals have been inundated with hundreds of inquiries from parents seeking information about postmortem examinations done on their children. Hospital administrators admit that, such is the demand for information, in some instances it may take months for face to face meetings to take place.
In addition to organ retention, some hospitals have admitted to supplying pituitary glands to drug companies for the manufacture of growth hormone before the advent of synthetic growth hormone, and selling placentas to a French cosmetics firm.
St James's Hospital in Dublin—the country's largest hospital—has set up its own inquiry to investigate media allegations that the bodies of babies were placed in the coffins of deceased unrelated adults from 1971 to 1987, when it ceased handling maternity cases. This was reportedly a charitable gesture to spare poorer parents the expense of a burial, while ensuring proper burials for the babies.
The St James's review is being conducted by Professor John Bonnar, emeritus professor of obstetrics and gynaecology, who worked at the hospital from 1983 to 1999, and Mr Liam Dunbar, chief executive at St James's Hospital from 1985 to 1995. They have been asked to report to the chief executive in one month, and the content of their report will be made available to the public.
The hospital has also confirmed that until the early 1980s, fetuses of less than 28 weeks' gestation were incinerated.
A hospital statement said: "With the consent of the mother, it was the practice of the nursing staff in the delivery ward to baptise all miscarriages and/or stillbirths.
"In 1980, it was not hospital practice to have a burial service for a foetus of less than 28 weeks' gestation unless specifically requested by the family. Hospital practice at that time was for the remains to be individually dealt with by a process of special incineration similar to cremation on the hospital premises. This was in accordance with practice throughout Ireland and the United Kingdom."
( Media reports last week also highlighted possible problems in the past with hospitals not notifying the coroner's office as required when deaths occur under anaesthesia.