Alder Hey Children's Hospital in Liverpool was the focus of more bitter criticism from parents yesterday after it was revealed that up to 400 foetuses had been kept in storage, apparently without the consent of relatives.
With the hospital already under criticism over its admission that it removed and retained organs from more than 800 babies without their parents' consent going as far back as 1990, relatives said they were "horrified" by the hospital's latest public admission following a BBC investigation.
The discovery that officials at Alder Hey retained the foetuses was, according to the hospital, disclosed to parents last year and was included in an external inquiry into the scandal over the retention of organs and talks were ongoing with parents over what should be done with the foetuses.
"It's quite a different issue from the retention of organs from children who died at Alder Hey but it is also something we have been completely open about," a spokesman for the hospital insisted yesterday. "Where families have approached us we have rigorously sought to give them the fullest information about any organs of their children that are held by the hospital and we have done that for foetuses too."
The foetuses were sent to the Liverpool hospital from other hospitals in the area. The foetuses - which date back to 1988, and some of which were used in research carried out by Liverpool University - were collected by Prof Dick van Velzen, the consultant pathologist at the centre of three organ retention inquiries at Alder Hey.
Prof van Velzen also carried out pathology work for other hospitals in Liverpool.
Last month, warehouse staff in Dartmouth, Canada, discovered tissues belonging to at least two unidentified children preserved in plastic bags inside a cardboard box in a storage facility he had rented since May 1998.
The consultant pathologist admitted the remains were his property and he insisted the tissues were given to him by the children's parents in order to gain a second opinion on the cause of their deaths.
"The tissues recovered are not body parts or the remains of deceased children, as the police seem to understand," Prof van Velzen explained at the time. "They are small parts of diseased bowel tissue which were removed by surgeons as part of routine operations elsewhere."
But Mr Ed Bradley, a spokesman for the Alder Hey parents group, Pity2, said the hospital had apparently retained the 400 foetuses without the parents' consent: "Some of these foetuses are from stillbirths and miscarriages which means they were wanted and I am sure parents would have had no idea they would end up in a hospital store.
"Although our campaign relates to the removal of organs, we would sympathise with anyone affected by this and I am sure Alder Hey's phone lines will be jammed with worried parents."