Parents seek the return of organs from hospitals

On Tuesday the shocking reports of the inquiries into the scandal of retained organs at Alder Hey children's hospital, Liverpool, disclosed the extent of the collections of human parts in English hospitals and medical schools. More than 100,000 parts, organs and foetuses, collected since 1970,...

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Published inDaily telegraph (London, England : 1969)
Main Author Celia Hall, Sean O'Neill and David Derbyshire
Format Newspaper Article
LanguageEnglish
Published London (UK) Daily Telegraph 01.02.2001
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Summary:On Tuesday the shocking reports of the inquiries into the scandal of retained organs at Alder Hey children's hospital, Liverpool, disclosed the extent of the collections of human parts in English hospitals and medical schools. More than 100,000 parts, organs and foetuses, collected since 1970, were identified in a census that also uncovered the existence, in one of the Liverpool collections, of the head of an 11-year-old boy. Similar censuses are now taking place in Scotland and Wales. The report into events at Alder Hey found that Prof Dick van Velzen, who worked in Liverpool from 1988 to 1995, had unethically and illegally ordered that organs were stripped from all children at post mortem examination and kept, without the knowledge or consent of parents. He had amassed a collection of nearly 7,000 human parts.
ISSN:0307-1235