Baby organs scandal came as shock to maternity hospital staff too, Professor reveals 

Consultant obstetrician says staff at the maternity hospital wish they could have done more to help the parents affected

Prof Keelin O'Donoghue said staff were very clear about how unacceptable this incident was from the start when they reported it to the management teams at both CUH and CUMH last year.

A consultant obstetrician at Cork University Maternity Hospital (CUMH), who is monitoring the national implementation of standards for bereavement care following pregnancy loss and perinatal death, says staff at the maternity hospital wish they could have done more to help the parents affected by the baby organ scandal.

But Professor Keelin O’Donoghue said they just were not aware that organs had been sent overseas for incineration until afterward.

Prof O’Donoghue also said the implementation team she chairs was assured earlier this year by all 19 maternity units across the country that they had local guidelines in place on post mortem consent, on the disposal of remains and the retention of organs, and had access to a suitable burial plot.

She posted the information in a series of what she described as personal tweets yesterday in the wake of the revelations that the organs and tissues of 18 babies had been sent from the mortuary at Cork University Hospital (CUH) last year for incineration in Belgium alongside clinical waste, without the knowledge of bereaved parents.

Cork parents, Leona Bermingham and Glenn Callanan, whose newborn twin, Lee, died just hours after his birth at CUMH in September 2019, said they were shocked to learn that his brain had been stored in the CUH mortuary for several months before it was sent for incineration last March.

“My grief has now turned into anger, anger that this could happen in this day and age,” Leona said yesterday.

In her tweets, Prof O’Donoghue said staff in perinatal pathology, as well as those on CUMH’s pregnancy loss and bereavement teams, know the national standards and guidelines governing post mortems, storage, and consent well, and were very clear about how unacceptable this incident was from the start when they reported it to the management teams at both CUH and CUMH last year.

And she said the CUMH management team led the disclosure process with bereaved parents.

“We wish we could have done more, helped the review or been able to respond to the ( RTÉ Investigates) programme,” she said.

We are very concerned for these parents but also want to support what has been an excellent perinatal post mortem service here.

“Perinatal post-mortem examination remains the gold standard in the investigation of perinatal death. Access to specialist perinatal pathology has varied but is improving nationally.” 

Following the review of all maternity units last year, Prof O'Donoghue's monitoring group issued recommendations which included all maternity units having access to mortuary facilities, with a suitable area for families to receive and spend time with their baby following a perinatal death.

But she said CUMH still does not have a dedicated area despite taking on perinatal port mortems from six maternity units this year.

She said the teams at CUMH realise that this has been a very distressing time for all concerned.

We remain committed to providing the highest standards of care and to learn from every mistake.

Meanwhile, the HSE said while University Hospital Limerick is fully compliant with the standards in relation to adult post mortem services, more work needs to be done before it can confirm compliance in relation to neonatal post mortems which are undertaken by “external service providers”.

“The hospital can confirm compliance in this area since 2019 and is currently contacting the pathologists involved in earlier post mortems to get assurance on compliance prior to 2019,” a spokesperson said.