Tell grieving parents truth

They have been through so much. The loss of a child is every parent's darkest nightmare. Then came the terrible discovery, in the wake of the Alder Hey scandal, that their beloved baby may have been buried without some of his or her organs.

Barely-healed wounds of bereavement were reopened. Families were plunged into a dreadful limbo, haunted by thoughts of what may have happened to their children post mortem.

Health authorities across the country set up inquiries. In the last few days, a number of families have received a letter from York Health Services NHS Trust.

Opening that letter would have been an ordeal in itself. Its contents prompted confusion and anger. The health authority was able to confirm that the organs were removed; but it does not know whether they were replaced for the funeral or, to use the chillingly clinical term, "disposed of".

The York trust is sticking to its pledge to keep in touch with the grieving parents. It has been able to tell some families exactly what happened to their children's remains.

But for those parents still in the dark, the trust's letters merely prolong the pain, and prompt yet more questions.

The most pertinent is: why does no one know what happened to the children's organs? Have the records been lost? Or, even more scandalously, were records never kept in the first place?

Certain doctors, this would suggest, regarded dead children's organs as mere tissue samples, to be experimented upon or thrown away as they saw fit. Such arrogance is horrifying. We need an assurance that these attitudes no longer have a place in our health service.

York trust still has a duty to the parents of the children whose organs it has not traced. If there is any chance of finding the truth, the trust must pursue its inquiries. If not, health chiefs should tell the parents, and explain what went wrong.

That is the least they deserve.

Updated: 10:42 Monday, May 21, 2001