doctors at Alder Hey, and FOR A DAY or so the scandal prompting countless other over the Alder Hey hospital relatives around the country stockpile of improperly to embark on a crazed hunt acquired organs seemed like for the pickled organs of people long ago dead and a olean come mue tor Health Secretary Alan buried. Milburn. The tabloids, also clearly The hefty report, pointing getting bored with the Mandelson saga, happily the finger at an evil - and • conveniently also foreign! - joined in, locating people doctor as the main culprit, who were distressed at the and feeding a media frenzy idea that they had only buried "part" of a deceased of hysterical headlines, gave Milburn a double opportu- loved-one, and who nity. appeared now to want to Not only could he pump reassemble the removed out a story to knock the parts as if this will bring any consolation for their loss or seemingly enaless Mandelson Naz sleaze sto- hope for the future. ries off the front pages, but But the mawkish, semi-reliat the same time he could gious frenzy, together with the macabre details about pursue the government's agenda of debunking the neaas keot in lars. and rooms filled with preserved medical establishment, and thus strengthening the hanc embyros, organs, and body of managers within the NHS. parts served another purMilburn seized the opportu- pose, which neither the nity with both hands, tabloids nor Milburn shamelessly winding up the intended. confused emotions of They scared and confused bereaved parents who had thousands of neone into been lied to and deceived by believing that any removal of body parts could only be for unscrupulous or insensitive some grotesque self-satisfaction of the pathologist -forgetting the genuine need to conduct research on the reasons for death, and the anatomy of disease, if help is to be available to the livine oress nysterla also undermined and intimidated doctors, who are required to ask relatives for permission to take organs from dead people for research and medical training, and for transplant surgery.
The combined effect is that a growing number of desperately ill children are already in danger of dying as the supply of donated organs for transplant dries up.
Now in a panic move to rearess some or the damaze he has done, Milburn has ordered a top-level "summit" of medical experts to stop the rot, stem the numbers tearing up donor cards, and press the case for more people to join the register of ooan donors.
But there is another, more political, issue which Milburn's easy target: Prof van Veltzen Milburn's exaggerated response to the Alder Hey situation has helped to cover up: the question of accountability in the NHS.
The indefensible antics of Professor Dick van Velzen and other pathologists who have developed a practice of taking organs without consultation or consent are a product not only of the hierarchical power of doctors, but of a health service run by quangos, which allows little public scrutiny.
But Milburn's new Health and Social Care Bill going through Parliament proposes to reinforce the secrecy surrounding clinical services with a draconian Clause 59, which would impose tight controls over any information on the treatment of any individual patient - and, therefore, of any deceased patient. Unauthorised use of such information would become an offence, punishable by a £5,000 fine. This type of gagging order would make it even harder for external investigations to discover, expose or question what happens to patients at any stage of their treatment. Worse, this new restriction is coupled with Milburn's plan to scrap the existing statutory bodies that are supposed to speak up on behalf of patients and their interests - Community Health Councils.
The new Bill would sweep away the existing network of CHCs, and replace them with a confused and completely unrepresentative array of local quangos, none of which would have the level of local support, organisational and operational independence that the best CHCs currently enjoy.
Campaigners have often pointed to weaknesses in local CHCs which fall under the thumb of local health authority or Trust bosses: but this is exactly the type of stooge organisations that Milburn seems determined to create, while dispersing the existing levels of expertise and social commitment among the best campaigning CHCs.
The organs scandal was an ideal moment to promote a new era of openness and accountability in the NHS: but Milburn has cynically used it as a fig leaf to divert from his attempts to slam the lid on future scrutiny and protest.
The abolition of CHCs has already been challenged by Labour back benchers, and by an increasingly vocal campaign by CHCs themselves, while those in sup port of Milburn more likely to mirror the views of Professor van Velzen than Dr Finlay.