  
Britain calls emergency organ summit to combat scandal
Last Updated: 2001-02-05 11:45:20 EST (Reuters Health)
LONDON (Reuters) - British Health Secretary Alan Milburn has called an emergency summit with medical professionals to restore public confidence in organ transplants following a scandal about their misuse, health officials said Sunday.
Britons were outraged last month by a government report detailing how pathologists at Alder Hey Hospital in the northern England city of Liverpool systematically stripped organs and other body parts from 2,000 dead children without parental consent. Top surgeons have warned that public fear and revulsion in the wake of the report has led to a severe drop in the number of organs being donated for transplantation.
Milburn will meet with surgeons, transplant organizations, and medical unions in an effort to find ways to restore confidence in the transplantation program. "Our aim is to maintain confidence in the program and [make] sure people feel reassured they will be treated with dignity and respect," Milburn told the Independent Sunday newspaper.
Milburn will consider asking employers to include donor cards in employees' pay packets to encourage greater participation in the transplant program.
Eminent heart surgeon Sir Magdi Yacoub said there had been no organ transplant operations performed at the Royal Brompton Hospital in London, a leading transplant center, since the report was released last week. Birmingham's Queen Elizabeth hospital has experienced a similar drop-off.
"There are a large number of patients who will almost certainly die if this trend continues," Yacoub was quoted as saying by the Times.
Dick van Velzen, the Dutch pathologist at the center of the Alder Hey scandal, was suspended from the British medical register on Friday. Van Velzen told the Sunday Times he had been made a scapegoat and alleged that dozens of other medical staff were also involved in the process of unauthorised organ stripping.
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