HSE 'fixing' failings where organs of deceased children were incinerated

Vivienne Clarke

The HSE’s director of acute services, Liam Woods has said that the HSE was “fixing” the failings of the process where the organs of deceased children were incinerated or retained without consent.

Mr Woods was speaking on RTÉ radio’s News at One following an audit that reviewed 10 per cent of cases across 25 hospitals between 2018 and 2021. He explained that on average 5,000 postmortems were carried out every year.

The audit identified a number of sites where there were concerns about the management of organs and where action was required as soon as possible. Earlier instances of concern were also identified prior to 2017 which would require further examination, he added.

The purpose of the audit had been to assess compliance with the HSE’s own guidelines which dated from 2012 and should have been reviewed in 2015, he added.

“We've seen some failings and we're fixing those”.

Clinical staff

Among the “drivers of difficulties” he said were the challenges of recruiting clinical staff, some of whom had to be trained abroad. There were also issues with policy and legislation.

Mr Woods said any families concerned would be contacted under the open disclosure policy. It was important to have openness on the issue.

“It is very distressing and absolutely it's not something we want to see happening”.

The HSE had a duty to change the system “going forward”, he added.