Parents’ outrage at NHS decision

FAMILIES of children whose organs were retained by hospitals without consent have said they are disheartened by a move to withdraw a compensation offer from parents who suffered a similar ordeal in Britain.

The British National Health Service (NHS) has caused outrage in Britain after withdrawing compensation of £2,800 (€3,980) offered to 1,348 families because not all the families accepted the payments. The take-up rate was 97%.

The chairperson of the Irish campaign group, Parents for Justice, Fionnuala O’Reilly, criticised the NHS’s decision.

“It would be a source of concern for us to see such a hard line taken by any health authority. Parents have been upset and traumatised enough without having to go through this kind of confrontational approach,” she said.

A British counterpart, the Stolen Hearts Bereaved Parents Group, headed by Dublin native, Birmingham councillor Matt Redmond, said: “What the hospitals did is scandalous and something we can never forget nor forgive, but the latest action by the NHS is downright shameful,” said Mr Redmond, whose own daughter was buried without some organs when she died at the age of six.

The NHS offer followed a High Court ruling in March last year in favour of one of three families who took test cases on behalf of more than 2,000 claimants across Britain.

Five test cases by members of Parents for Justice are due to come before the High Court here in the next few months and an estimated 60 cases are being taken privately by individual families.