Parents of baby whose organs were incinerated in Cork welcome Human Tissue Bill passage 

Laura and Fintan Kelleher, who live in Australia, are among 18 families whose babies’s organs were sent to Belgium from Cork University Maternity Hospital for incineration in 2020, without their permission or knowledge.

The parents of a little girl who was among 18 babies whose
organs were sent abroad for incineration say the pain they were put through has “paid off” now that the Human Tissue Bill is at Committee Stage in the Dail.

The organs of Fintan and Laura Kelleher’s baby daughter Hope were sent for incineration without their parent's consent or knowledge. The stillborn little girl was delivered at Cork University Maternity Hospital in November 2019.

The couple launched a petition last year demanding that the Human Tissue Bill be published by the Department of Health.

The bill will be before the Select Committee on Health for consideration today. Officials from the Department of Health will be at the committee to discuss the bill.

The legislation will provide a framework for the retention and disposal of organs used in post mortem examinations. It will also provide a statutory framework for organ donation and transplant services.

Under the legislation, people will be deemed to be organ donors unless they have registered their wish not to have their organs donated.

Fintan and Laura said that knowing the legislation is taking another step forward is a relief for them, as they know that it will help prevent other families going through the same pain they suffered.

Laura Kelleher is one of the bereaved parents of 18 babies whose organs were incinerated in Belgium along with clinical waste, protested outside Cork University Maternity Hospital last year. Picture: Andy Gibson.

They added: “All the pain and stress has paid off for what they had done to our precious babies’s organs. It will never leave us of what has happened, but it makes us happy that respect and guidelines are going to be put in place by law.” 

According to Health Service Executive standards, organs retained after post-mortem should be sensitively disposed of by burial or cremation only.

The organs of the 18 babies were initially stored in the morgue at Cork University Hospital after being released by the pathology department following post-mortem examinations.

According to internal correspondence, mortuary staff at CUH became aware early in 2020 that its burial plot in Curraghkippane’s St Mary’s Cemetery was full and the organs could not be buried.

Last November, a report from a review team set up to examine the circumstances leading to the disposal of the babies’ organs said the organs were incinerated abroad because of a “misguided” decision and a deviation from local policy and national standards.

The report outlined that the organs were sent along with adult body parts from CUH to Denmark for incineration by an approved contractor. It had originally been thought that the organs had been sent to Belgium.