Dutch doctor in UK organ scandal found guilty

LONDON - A Dutch doctor at the centre of a British hospital scandal was found guilty of serious professional misconduct on Monday for removing organs from the bodies of 850 dead children without their parents' consent.

The General Medical Council (GMC) ordered Professor Dick van Velzen be struck off the UK medical register after his actions at the Alder Hey Hospital in Liverpool, northern England.

A 2001 government report into the scandal, which shocked Britain with its graphic nature, said the doctor had ordered the stripping of hearts, brain parts, eyes and a number of heads.

The inquiry was launched after the hospital admitted that between 1988 and 1994 staff removed and stored organs without consent.

More than 2000 pots containing body parts from some 850 infants were found at the hospital during an investigation.

Some parents had to hold three or four funerals to bury their child.

The GMC, the governing body for Britain's doctors, said van Velzen had acted in an inappropriate, improper and irresponsible manner.

"Parents whose child has just died are at their most vulnerable and therefore it is of utmost importance that they are treated sensitively and that their wishes are adhered to," the GMC said in a statement.

"A doctor who fails to live up to that expectation will seriously undermine not only his or her relationship with that particular parent or parents, but the confidence of patients in doctors."

Van Velzen, who was suspended from the medical register in 2001, had previously protested his innocence and blamed the hospital for failing to tell parents.

He was not present during the hearing and has 28 days to appeal the verdict.

- REUTERS