British hospital acknowledges storing hundreds of foetuses

Alder Hey hospital in Liverpool, currently under investigation over storing organs from around 800 babies, received foetuses from other hospitals in the city, a spokesman confirmed.

He said parents' groups had been informed of the collection of foetuses in December last year and added that talks were going on to decide what should be done with them.

The foetuses were collected between 1988 and 1995 by Dick van Velzen, a Dutch pathologist at the centre of the organ retention scandal at the hospital. Some have been used for research at Liverpool University.

Many of the parents involved called for a public inquiry, after the parts of two children were discovered in a warehouse in Canada. Eight organs belonging to two children aged four or five were found vacuum-packed in crates belonging to Van Velzen.

Canadian police have issued a warrant for Van Velzen's arrest on charges of indignity to human remains, which carries a maximum five- year jail sentence. Van Velzen moved to Canada after leaving Alder Hey in 1995. In May 1998 he left possessions in store in Dartmouth, Nova Scotia, and went to work in the Netherlands.

Warehouse workers found the cardboard box of human organs, and 12 boxes of pig organs, in Van Velzen's container after he failed to keep up storage payments.

(la/dpa)