More families to join claim against hospital for keeping organs

More families are expected to join 118 families suing Auckland's Green Lane Hospital for $10.62 million damages for keeping their babies' hearts without consent.
The families' lawyer, John Miller, today filed papers in the High Court at Wellington identifying two claimants who will act as representatives to test the families' right to sue before the matter goes to trial.

The claim was launched after Green Lane Hospital revealed in 2002 it had 1350 hearts from babies and children collected since the 1950s, many of which were taken without permission.

The families are claiming $90,000 each and there were another five or six in the pipeline, he said.

Families were continuing to contact his Wellington law firm following publicity about the case.

"We would like to cut it off but if people come for help we don't feel we can turn them away, so have to keep adding on to the claim," he told NZPA.

"One wonders whether one should have made a mass appeal at the start."

Crown Law -- which was acting for the Attorney-General and the Residual Health Management Unit which has liability for the old Green Lane Hospital -- believed there was no course of action for the families.

"Our basic argument is that you can't take organs without consent," Mr Miller said.

"There are spiritual and cultural connotations for burying someone whole."

The two claimants had been selected to test whether the families had to have a recognised psychiatric illness to be entitled to sue and whether post mortems conducted as part of a coroner's inquest did not require consent, he said.

Some of the families were asked by Green Lane if it could keep their babies' hearts and had refused but the hospital had kept the organs, Mr Miller said. "So they may have a stronger case."

A hearing date will be set at a further preliminary conference on February 8.

- NZPA