I'm no Dr Frankenstein -- Dutch surgeon in baby organs row

I'm no Dr Frankenstein -- Dutch surgeon in baby organs row
AGENCE FRANCE PRESSE

THE HAGUE, DEC 5: A Dutch surgeon accused of having removed organs from 850 dead children without their parents' knowledge while employed at a British hospital said on Sunday that he repeatedly urged management to end the practice.

Professor Dick Van Velzen is accused of having removed the organs while working at Alder Hey hospital in Liverpool, northern England, between 1988 and 1995. "I warned management from 1993 that from the ethical point of view it was a time-bomb," Van Velzen told the Netherland's NOS television channel on Sunday evening.

"Now they are trying to describe me as a kind of Dr Frankenstein, just to get themselves off the hook," he added. "Obviously, I never removed organs without authorisation. I take my speciality seriously. The parents have been betrayed and consciously lined up against me by the hospital," he added.

Van Velzen said the removal of hearts, lungs, livers and kidneys was not carried out secretly or illegally and was only practised during post-mortem examinations totry to ascertain the cause of death. "These are the organs of children for whom we did not know the cause of death. In these cases, a coroner ordered an autopsy," he said.

Van Velzen told Britain's Sunday Times newspaper that he was pressured into removing the organs by the hospital to boost its organ "library" which he said held a collection of 2,000 or more organs amassed since 1949.