Grieving families must wait until September to learn how CUMH incinerated their babies' organs
Bereaved parents of the 18 babies whose organs were incinerated protesting at CUH on June 11. They have been told they will get a draft report into the incident in September. Picture: Andy Gibson
A draft report on how the organs of 18 babies were sent from Cork University Maternity Hospital to Antwerp for incineration without parental consent will be given to families in September.
The parents of the 18 babies have been notified in an email that the review team set up to examine the circumstances of how the organs were sent for incineration will be “in a position to share the draft report with the families by mid-late September”.
This is almost a year after the report was due to be completed.
The update also informed the families that the review team is “following a careful process in line with fair procedures as we are required to do in accordance with the HSE document, the Incident Management Framework”.
The email added that the process is taking time “for which we apologise, but it is outside the control of the team”.
The families were told recently that the review team had sought legal advice on the report before it will be provided to the families.
In the correspondence, the families were told: “We must continue with this careful and thorough process.”
The families will be updated further in mid-August on the progress of the report.
A protest against the delay in furnishing the families with the report was held at the hospital on June 11 by frustrated parents.
Among them was Katie Quilligan, who said the latest update offers no understanding of what the families are going through while waiting for the report to be completed. She said:
The families have been told they will be provided with an update “every three weeks”.
The review was commissioned by Cork University Hospital in May 2020 to establish the circumstances leading to the incineration of the organs.
The review did not commence until April last year.
According to internal correspondence, mortuary staff at CUH became aware early in 2020 that its burial plot in St Mary’s Cemetery in Curraghkippane, Cork City, was full and the organs could not be buried.
The organs were sent for incineration in late March and early April 2020, because space needed to be freed up at the morgue because of the possibility of increased deaths at the hospital following the arrival of Covid-19.
A spokesman for the South Southwest Hospital Group confirmed that the review is ongoing.
The emergence last September of the incineration of the organs in Antwerp led to the commissioning of a national audit of post-mortem practice and policies.
Details of the audit emerged last month, revealing that six high-priority recommendations were made, each of which posed a “potentially systemic” risk if not implemented.
The audit that the HSE’s policy for post-mortem examinations had not been updated for 10 years, despite a review having been scheduled for 2015, and did not specify guidelines or timelines for the disposal of organs “where issues arise” as to the final decision.
