Taking organs ethical: expert

By CATHERINE MASTERS

Parents should be overridden if they refuse to allow body parts from their dead children to be used to save lives, a New Zealand ethics expert believes.

Dr Martin Wilkinson, a senior political studies lecturer at Auckland University, presented a paper yesterday giving his views about a scandal in Britain where dead children's organs were secretly removed.

Last year it was revealed that Europe's busiest hospital, the Alder Hey Royal Liverpool Children's Hospital, had 2500 pots containing the organs of dead children.

"The organs had been taken for research at post-mortem," Dr Wilkinson said, "but while the parents had either consented to the post-mortems, or at least knew that the post-mortems had been ordered by the coroner, they did not know that the organs of their children were being taken and stored.

"The organs had been taken secretly."

Inquiries have begun into how the hospital retained the organs, including hearts, lungs and brains, of 850 children without the knowledge of parents.

It has since emerged that another British hospital and one in Germany had taken dead children's organs for research without parental consent.

Brenda Saunders, a spokeswoman for Auckland Healthcare, said that situation would not arise here as under New Zealand law individuals had the right to decide what should happen to their body parts.

Parents or guardians had the right to decide for children.

Auckland Healthcare also had its own clear policy that any body parts taken for specific purposes were taken only with informed consent.

A surgeon would never take organs in secret as it would be breaking the law, she said.

Dr Wilkinson told the Herald yesterday that he believed there was only one direct reason for getting parental consent for organs to be used in research, transplants or some teaching procedures.

That reason was to avoid distressing parents - but sometimes even that reason should be able to be over-ridden, he said.

"If the effect of asking parents is that there is a terrible shortage and people die then I think it's okay to take it without their consent.

"But if it's not, if it's just inconvenient [because the doctor is busy or is embarrassed to ask] then I don't think it's okay.

"If it's a case where you need the organs to save lives and they say 'no,' then I think you should override it."

Considering the present climate about abuse and of outrage over child abuse, Dr Wilkinson was asked whether he believed the dead children were being respected if their organs were taken without permission.

He said he did not believe small dead children had interests that survived their deaths.

"If you think using their organs is a failure to show respect then you wouldn't be able to justify parental consent to it. But most people think it's okay to do it if you get parents' consent."

It was not disrespectful to use the dead child to save someone else's life, he said.

"I mean, it would be if you put it on display in a circus or something, but this is not for trivial reasons."