Storage of organs ‘remains unregulated’

IRELAND is lagging years behind Britain in ensuring that consent is obtained before body parts are kept by hospitals, a support group for parents at the centre of the Irish organ retention scandal claimed yesterday.

Legislation, prompted by the scandal at Alder Hey Children’s Hospital in Liverpool, has just been published in Britain. The retrieval and the storage of human organs remains unregulated in Ireland.

Under the Human Tissue Bill, doctors in Britain who fail to get consent from patients or families for the retention of organs face a jail term of up to three years. The bill provides for the setting up of a Human Tissue Authority that will license doctors, researchers and institutions that use tissue and organs for transplant and research. Under the bill no one, except with the coroner’s authority or for criminal investigation, will be allowed to retain organs or tissue without the patient’s or relative’s consent.