Advice to aid organs concern

Queen's University had kept human tissue

A telephone inquiry line has been set up to give people in Northern Ireland information about organs and tissues which were kept without their consent.

The launch of the initiative on Wednesday follows a recommendation made by the Human Organs Inquiry.

The inquiry was put into place after revelations that organs were removed from children without parental consent over a period of more than half a century, and stored for the purposes of diagnosis.

It later emerged that organs from adults were also kept.

Bairbre de Brun said she would act on recommendations

The province's main teaching hospitals were involved as well as Queen's University, which earlier this year admitted it held a bank of 190 adult brains along with an "archive" of 90 embryos and foetuses.

The Human Organs inquiry made 20 recommendations to the former Stormont health minister Bairbre de Brun, who said she had planned to implement all of them.

One was that the Department of Health launch a two year publicity campaign to tell relatives they could reclaim organs and tissue samples which had been kept without their fully informed consent.

The inquiry argued that one central enquiry point about retained organs and tissues would make it easier for members of the public who had concerns.

Pip Jaffa of the Relatives Reference Group said the aim of the inquiry line was to try to get as much information for relatives as possible.

"The situation is that any relative who had a post mortem, whether it was a hospital consented post mortem or a coroner's post mortem, the possibility was that organs were taken with the possibility that some of them were retained.

"If they want to find information, if they have concerns or if they're not coping with the very idea, then they can ring the freephone and we can help them," she said.

The department has said the phone line is to be run on its behalf by the Parents Advice centre. The number to call is 0808 800880.