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Doctor's 'life of helping children'
Professor van Velzen says he has done nothing wrong |
The Dutch pathologist at the centre of the Alder Hey child organs controversy says he has devoted his life to helping children.
When Professor Dick van Velzen, 50, came to Britain in 1988, he was regarded as one of the world's leading authorities on infant cot death.
On his arrival he took the University of Liverpool's first chair in foetal and infant pathology in 1988.
Until he moved to Canada in 1995 he was a leader on a research project which revealed that more than half the cot deaths in Britain were linked to a respiratory virus caught by small children.
In 1995 he left Liverpool for a job at the IWK Grace Hospital in Nova Scotia, Canada.
He currently works at the Westeinde Hospital in The Hague, Holland.
Professor van Velzen has promised to co-operate fully with English chief medical officer Liam Donaldson's investigation into the issue of parental consent for organ removal.
He told the BBC he had sympathy with the parents of the children whose organs were taken by Alder Hey Hospital and said the hospital should not have kept the organs for so long.
But he said parents signed consent forms permitting organs to be removed.
He added he was angry that "even after nine years [Alder Hey] has chosen not to fund finalisation of the reports to which parents have a right".
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