Kerre Woodham: Is money really the answer for distraught, suing parents?

I haven't had to endure the death of a child, and I'm grateful for that. The pain and grief from such a loss is unimaginable.

Sadly, there are plenty of people who have had to find out the hard way how to bear the loss of a child, and it appears there is no single way of dealing with the agony. I've spoken to a number of parents whose children's hearts were part of the Green Lane Hospital heart library and their responses are different.

One woman has allowed the hospital to retain her daughter's heart until such time as she herself dies, and then she wants to be buried with the heart.

Another travelled to Auckland and gifted the heart to the hospital. She was unhappy about her baby's heart being taken without her knowledge, but was able to reconcile what had happened by taking control of the process. Another, who was Maori, had interred her son's heart with his body, and had offered to work with other parents because she was an experienced counsellor.

And others want to sue.

One woman, the aunt of a baby whose heart was taken, was very strident in her calls for money.

She thought what happened was terrible and if the family could get any money out of "them", she was all for the parents pursuing a claim through the courts.

I asked her who she thought the "them" was and pointed out that it was the taxpayer who'd be paying the bill, not some conglomerate of greedy, unscrupulous body-snatching doctors who'd set up a hospital for their own personal profit.

But that point seemed to escape her. "They" had stuffed up, and now "they" had to pay.

The lawyer for the group of parents seeking millions of dollars in damages says it's not about the money. Yeah, right.

If it wasn't about the money, then why sue?

The parents might say it's because the hospital will think twice about how they treat their patients if they're forced to cough up a huge sum of money, but procedures have already changed.

You can't even have your temperature taken without giving consent, so it's unlikely systems can be tightened any further.

I appreciate that for some people the removal of body parts is a cultural taboo. If you don't understand just how painful that could be, read Patricia Grace's Baby No Eyes.

But in those cases, how on earth could a sum of money compensate for that horror? It couldn't.

And one of the dads involved told me that he wouldn't be suing, even though he still had nightmares about his son's heart being removed.

Many of the parents appreciate that having the library has assisted doctors in saving the lives of many babies, so their precious children have been responsible for saving the lives of others. They're the ones who seem to be dealing with their loss well. I don't understand why some parents are suing.

Nor do I understand why Iraena Asher's parents are suing the police. They believe she is a "martyr" to the inadequacies of the police communications system. Again, I think their pain is misplaced. Undoubtedly, the operator could have handled the call better.

But let's not forget Iraena was taken in by a family in Piha. She was given a bed and a safe refuge for the night, and chose to leave it.

Does the Asher case now mean that police are responsible for keeping every emotionally and psychologically fragile person in this country safe from harm - including self-harm? That's a big ask.

This culture of blame and punishment is counter-productive. And even if these unhappy parents win their lawsuits, I can't see that the money's going to do them a blind bit of good while they still nurse their feelings of anger and bitterness and grievance.

- HERALD ON SUNDAY