Agony goes on for organ scandal families

FAMILIES devastated by the organ retention scandal face further heartache as they wait to be told that their deceased children’s body parts were supplied to a pharmaceutical company for drug production.

Our Lady’s Hospital for Sick Children in Crumlin, Dublin, has written to around 20 families to confirm their children’s pituitary glands were passed on to Pharmacia Ireland Ltd, which used them to make human growth hormones.

But other families have yet to be notified because the hospital is awaiting further clarification of information it received from Pharmacia, while several other hospitals are still processing data which they got from the company.

Campaign group, Parents for Justice, fears the eventual number of families who will be told their children’s remains were used in the company’s manufacturing process could run to many hundreds.

A number of the group’s members were among the first to receive written notifications from Our Lady’s this week. “We believe it’s the tip of the iceberg,” said spokeswoman Fionnuala O’Reilly.

It was revealed in 2000 that a number of hospitals had provided pituitary glands to Pharmacia, then called Kabi Vitrum, for an 11-year period up to the mid-1980s when the practice was rendered obsolete by the development of synthetic human growth hormones.

It was not established how many batches were supplied and Pharmacia, which has since merged with Pfizer, said in 2000 it did not have sufficiently detailed records to identify which children the glands came from.

Our Lady’s was notified by solicitors for the company recently, however, that they had found records with post-mortem numbers for the years 1981-1984.

The hospital was able to match the post-mortem numbers with the names of former patients before notifying the families of children about whom specific queries had been made.

In a statement issued last night, Our Lady’s chief executive Gerry O’Dwyer said the hospital regretted the distress the new information had caused to families and said they would be offered counselling.

Beaumont Hospital, the country’s leading neurosurgical centre, confirmed last night that it too had received new information from Pharmacia but said it was not possible to match the data with post-mortem records to identify which patients’ remains were supplied to the company.

Ms O’Reilly said the issue had been handled badly. “The parents who have been on to me are devastated, traumatised and distressed. It’s this terrible drip-feeding of information that is constantly reawakening old sorrows.”

Parents for Justice pulled out of the ongoing Dunne Inquiry into organ retention in frustration at its lack of statutory powers and slow progress.

Ms O’Reilly said yesterday’s developments highlighted more than ever the need for the inquiry to be put on a statutory footing.

“What we’ve learned today raises more questions than answers. Now we know the pharmaceutical company did have records when it said it didn’t.

“We need to know was other human material sold, transferred or supplied to pharmaceutical companies and if there was a profit motive. The only way we will find that out for once and for all is if the inquiry is given some real teeth.”