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Today's Date

Law Reform

As you may know, the government has promised that there will be new legislation to prevent what happened in the past from happening again.

As part of the preparations there have been various consultation documents released to allow interested parties to make their views known on a variety of issues. Including hospital & coroners post mortem examination, organ donation, transplant, next of kin, research and ethics and so on.

One of those consultation documents was issued by the Retained Organs Commission. It was called:

Unclaimed & unidentifiable organs and tissue.
A possible regulatory framework.

PITY II sent a copy of this document to every member along with a covering letter from the ROC. The document asked for comments, views & responses in relation to a number of important questions about human organs and tissue removed and retained during post-mortem examination. There were 45 specific questions in total. The closing date was 10th of June 2002. But, as we informed everybody at the AGM, the ROC was prepared to continue accepting responses long after that date. We hope that as many of you as possible responded to it.

Department of Health - Law Reform Consultation.

The Clinical Ethics & Human Tissue Dept. which is the branch of the Department of Health responsible for the consultations on law reform, issued a consultation document entitled:

'Human Bodies, Human Choices'

Again PITY II sent out a copy of the summary document to all of the membership. The summary document listed seventeen key questions for you to consider relating to new legislation. We also sent out a copy of a wider range of questions. This listed over 140 questions in all. The closing date for responding was 14th October 2002 although responses were being accepted after this date. These consultation documents are asking for your views on what should be part of any new legislation. We hope that you took the opportunity to make your views known.

Parents Meeting to Discuss Law Reform Consultation Document.

We later also sent out a separate mailing asking if parents and relatives would like PITY II to organise a meeting to discuss the 'Human Bodies, Human Choices' Consultation Document. A tear off reply slip was included.

For those who replied expressing an interest we organised a meeting in the Holiday Inn in Liverpool on Sunday 6th October. The key seventeen questions from the summary document were discussed in detail and the agreed responses were recorded on behalf of those present.

Our thanks go to Briony Ensor from The Clinical Ethics & Human Tissue Department who travelled from Oxford to attend the meeting and to be on hand to offer advice and answer parents and relative's questions.

Thanks, also, to Vicky Hilliard & Rachel Donovan of Goodman's who gave up their Sunday afternoon to attend the meeting; and of course many thanks to the parents who attended and expressed their views so clearly.

As well as the above group response, individual members have also submitted responses to the consultation documents.

ROC Meeting on Law Reform issues.

The committee were invited to meet with Professor Margo Brazier and Steve Catling of the ROC on the 19th September. The meeting was requested to discuss questions from the afore mentioned consultation document. Preliminary consideration of the paper identified certain issues that would be of particular significance for those involved in organ retention issues. Such as Definitions, Consent , Next of Kin and Penalties for non -compliance

Law Reform Workshops/Meetings.

There have been a number of small workshops and meetings organised by the Clinical Ethics & Human Tissue Branch of the Dept of Health. The workshops were intended to seek views and opinions from various interested individuals and groups. The subjects were wide ranging and mainly based on the consultation document 'Human Bodies Human Choices'.

 

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