Aborted babies incinerated to heat UK hospitals
Aborted babies incinerated to heat UK hospitals
The remains of more than 15,000 babies were incinerated as 'clinical waste' by hospitals in Britain with some used in 'waste to energy' plants
The bodies of thousands of aborted and miscarried babies were incinerated as clinical waste, with some even used to heat hospitals, an investigation has found.
Ten NHS trusts have admitted burning foetal remains alongside other rubbish while two others used the bodies in ‘waste-to-energy’ plants which generate power for heat.
Last night the Department of Health issued an instant ban on the practice which health minister Dr Dan Poulter branded ‘totally unacceptable.’
At least 15,500 foetal remains were incinerated by 27 NHS trusts over the last two years alone, Channel 4’s Dispatches discovered.
The programme, which will air tonight, found that parents who lose children in early pregnancy were often treated without compassion and were not consulted about what they wanted to happen to the remains.
One of the country’s leading hospitals, Addenbrooke’s in Cambridge, incinerated 797 babies below 13 weeks gestation at their own ‘waste to energy’ plant. The mothers were told the remains had been ‘cremated.’
Another ‘waste to energy’ facility at Ipswich Hospital, operated by a private contractor, incinerated 1,101 foetal remains between 2011 and 2013.
They were brought in from another hospital before being burned, generating energy for the hospital site. Ipswich Hospital itself disposes of remains by cremation.
“This practice is totally unacceptable,” said Dr Poulter.
“While the vast majority of hospitals are acting in the appropriate way, that must be the case for all hospitals and the Human Tissue Authority has now been asked to ensure that it acts on this issue without delay.”
Sir Bruce Keogh, NHS Medical Director, has written to all NHS trusts to tell them the practice must stop.
The Chief Medical Officer, Dame Sally Davies, has also written to the Human Tissue Authority to ask them make sure that guidance is clear.
And the Care Quality Commission said it would investigate the programme's findings.
Prof Sir Mike Richards, Chief Inspector of Hospitals, said: “I am disappointed trusts may not be informing or consulting women and their families.
“This breaches our standard on respecting and involving people who use services and I’m keen for Dispatches to share their evidence with us.
“We scrutinise information of concern and can inspect unannounced, if required.”
A total of one in seven pregnancies ends in a miscarriage, while NHS figures show there are around 4,000 stillbirths each year in the UK, or 11 each day.
Ipswich Hospital Trust said it was concerned to discover that foetal remains from another hospital had been incinerated on its site.
A spokeswoman said: “The Ipswich Hospital NHS Trust does not incinerate foetal remains.”
She added that the trust “takes great care over foetal remains”
A spokesman for the Cambridge University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust said that trained health professionals discuss the options with parents ‘both verbally and in writing.’
"The parents are given exactly the same choice on the disposal of foetal remains as for a stillborn child and their personal wishes are respected,” they added.
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Permalink Reply by Dawn Marie on
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Don't hold your breath :(
I saw this was breaking news on Lifesite. I had to force myself to click on it here because it is so horrifying and so evil it makes a persons head spin and feel immensely ill.
God help us+
We make all other generations look good by comparison, but as a society we are looking more and more like the sick Myans who sacrificed up to 50,000 of their people a year.
But we do not even resemble them because they did not know Christ. What is the excuse for this hell upon earth being done by so called human beings? It is diabolical beyond measure.
Catherine is right, if this were puppies or kittens that had been incinerated there would be rioting in the streets and heads would roll, but they were babies so no one says a word.
Michael said:I wonder when the papal condemnation will occur?
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The British government has imposed an immediate ban on the incinera...
The video on demand: http://www.channel4.com/programmes/dispatches/4od#3674490
MANCHESTER, England (CNS) -- The British government has imposed an immediate ban on the incineration of miscarried and aborted babies after journalists found cases of hospitals burning fetuses to generate heat.
Dr. Dan Poulter, parliamentary undersecretary of state for health, issued a March 24 statement that the burning of fetuses had been instantly prohibited following revelations by a team of investigative reporters working for the Channel 4 television program "Dispatches."
The journalists used the Freedom of Information Act 2000 to make National Health Service trusts reveal how they had disposed of fetal remains in recent years.
They discovered that thousands of aborted and miscarried babies had been burned as clinical waste with some incinerated in on-site "waste-to-energy" plants generating power to heat the hospitals.
"This practice is totally unacceptable," announced Poulter, who worked in hospital obstetrics and gynecology before he became a politician. "That is why I have asked Professor Sir Bruce Keogh, NHS medical director, to write to all NHS hospital trusts, to make it clear that it must stop now."
He said in his statement that Dame Sally Davies, England's chief medical officer, has also written to the Human Tissue Authority, the regulatory body, to ensure "that there is clear guidance on this issue."
He added: "While the vast majority of hospitals are acting in the appropriate way, that must be the case for all hospitals, and the Human Tissue Authority has now been asked to ensure that it acts on this issue without delay."
The "Dispatches" film, called "Exposing Hospital Heartbreak," was presented by Amanda Holden, a former "Britain's Got Talent" judge and a mother of two who lost a child by miscarriage in 2010 and who gave birth to a stillborn son in 2011.
She said in a March 24 statement that she was "absolutely delighted" that the government had acted so swiftly to ban the practice of the incineration of fetuses, which, she said, had caused misery and anguish to many parents.
The film revealed that the remains of at least 15,500 fetuses were incinerated by 27 trusts over the last two years alone.
It found that one major hospital -- Addenbrooke's in Cambridge -- incinerated nearly 800 fetuses below 13 weeks gestation at its waste-to-energy plant.
More than 1,100 fetuses were incinerated at a waste-to-energy plant at Ipswich Hospital in the east of England between 2011 and 2013.
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