A chara, – The recent distressing headlines that the HSE had last year sent babies’ organs to be incinerated, without knowledge or consent of their parents, is not unprecedented.
It seems we have collective amnesia regarding the Dunne Inquiry into postmortem practices in Ireland which closed in 2005, at a cost of €20 million, after five years.
My own family gave evidence to the inquiry of circumstances around my mother’s death and postmortem. Upon contacting the hospital in question, the inquiry team were informed that her organs had been retained after her 1992 postmortem.
Upon contact from the Dunne Inquiry into her records, the hospital discovered these organs in storage and promptly destroyed them. We had never been informed of any organ retention.
While this was obviously wrong behaviour on so many counts, what was more upsetting was the fact that any findings from the inquiry were ever published. No learnings were ever shared. Hundreds of families gave evidence of inappropriate treatment.
Now we find 16 years later, inappropriate practices still abound. There should be no circumstances where a loved one’s organs are destroyed without agreement with the family.
We have spent millions as a nation inquiring on abuses of knowledge, power and position, in our care of single mothers, children, the sick, the disabled, the elderly.
The inquiries are useless. As a nation we still allow these things to continue. What’s next? Shame on us.
– Yours, etc,
MICHELLE NOLAN,
Blackrock,
Co Dublin.