Parents demand inquiry into child organs scandal
By Jenny Booth
Oct.1.2000
Alder Hey - News
Secretary of State announces investigation into retention of organs [6 Oct '99] - Department of Health
Press releases - Department of Health
Department of Health
The Royal College of Pathologists
News - University of Liverpool
General Medical Council
PARENTS whose dead children's internal organs were removed and kept by a Liverpool hospital without their knowledge have called for a public inquiry, after the parts of two more children were discovered in a warehouse in Canada.
Eight organs belonging to two children aged four or five were found vacuum-packed in crates belonging to Professor Dick van Velzen, the pathologist at Alder Hey hospital in Liverpool who removed thousands of organs for research between 1988 and 1995.
Canadian police have not ruled out the possibility that the organs are from children treated at Alder Hey. They have issued a warrant for Prof van Velzen's arrest on charges of indignity to human remains, which carries a maximum five-year jail sentence. Judie Pal, of Halifax police in Canada, said that the crown prosecution service would decide whether to extradite Prof van Velzen. She said: "If he comes back to Canada he will be arrested but it's the crown's decision whether to go ahead with extradition."
A confidential NHS inquiry is due to report later this month into why the hearts, brains and other internal organs of 850 young children at Alder Hey were removed and kept without parental knowledge, and what rules were broken.
Parents have been devastated by the new discovery. Janet Valentine, whose daughter died in 1991, said that she believed that Prof van Velzen should be prevented from practising medicine anywhere in the world. Mrs Valentine has reburied four-month-old Kayleigh once after some of her organs turned up in a Liverpool University storeroom. Now she faces a third funeral.
Mrs Valentine, the co-ordinator of the pressure group Pity 2, said: (Parents Interring their Youngsters for a Second Time). "I admire the Canadian police for acting so quickly. Why didn't the police here put out a warrant for Prof van Velzen's arrest? I think he should stand trial and be made to pay for what he has done."
Paula O'Leary staged a sit-in at Alder Hey for the return of organs belonging to her son Andrew, who died 19 years ago. She accused the pathologist of having a "ghoulish fascination with children's organs".
Prof van Velzen moved to Canada after leaving Alder Hey in 1995. In May 1998 he left possessions in store in Dartmouth, Nova Scotia, and went to work in the Netherlands. Warehouse workers found the cardboard box of human organs, and 12 boxes of pig organs, in Prof van Velzen's container after he failed to keep up storage payments.
Speaking from the Hague yesterday, Prof van Velzen denied wrongdoing. He claimed that the find in Canada was nothing to do with Alder Hey, but human tissue removed in surgical biopsies and sent to him for analysis. He said: "They were in storage as my personal property was in transit, they were given for research and were an experiment to provide the cause of a bowel disease called fibrosing colonopathy."
Jane Kennedy, the Liverpool MP whose constituency includes Alder Hey, said that it was deeply shocking to keep children's and animal organs together. Alder Hey hospital said that managers were discussing the find with the NHS inquiry team and had not yet decided what to do.
5 September 2000: Deacon refuses to end retention of child organs [Yorkhill Hospital, Glasgow]
26 August 2000: Organ row parents to see Health Minister [Yorkhill Hospital, Glasgow]
17 March 2000: Alder Hey chief fired over boy's lost organs
4 December 1999: Milburn orders inquiry into baby organ scandal
7 October 1999: Children's organs are found in lab store
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