An internal HSE audit of 12 hospitals carried out last year has found that “essential post-mortem training” has not been “fully designed or delivered” across all hospitals.<\/p>\n
According to the audit, this failure creates “a risk of inconsistent approaches across [hospital] sites, potentially leading to errors and failings to properly inform bereaved families about the sensitive disposal of organs”.<\/p>\n
The 2025 audit, released to Prime Time under the Freedom of Information Act, reviewed compliance with the 2023 HSE National Guidelines for Post-Mortem Examination Services across the HSE system.<\/p>\n
Inconsistencies in record keeping about post-mortem examinations and organ retention in some hospitals were also found by the audit.<\/p>\n
Some hospital post-mortem examination registers were missing data such “as the time of death and Coroner authorisation”, required by national guidelines, according to the report.<\/p>\n
The 12 hospitals reviewed were Our Lady’s Hospital Navan, Our Lady of Lourdes Hospital, Drogheda, Children\u2019s Health Ireland (CHI) at Crumlin, the Midland Regional Hospital Tullamore, University Hospital Kerry, Cork University Hospital, Galway University Hospital, Sligo University Hospital, St Colmcille\u2019s Hospital, University Hospital Waterford and University Hospital Limerick.<\/p>\n
The audit report also found “an undefined and undocumented relationship between the HSE and the Coroner Service”.<\/p>\n
In four of the 12 hospitals audited \u2013 Sligo University Hospital, Our Lady of Lourdes Drogheda, University Hospital Limerick and University Hospital Waterford – it was found that hospitals “accepted verbal consent” for a post-mortem examination from a coroner, even though the guidelines require signed written consent, except in exceptional cases.<\/p>\n
“This practice could make the consent process legally vulnerable to challenge,” according to the audit.<\/p>\n
In other hospitals it was found that, instead of the required written authorisation via email or letter, “some coroners communicate using other methods such as SMS messages”.<\/p>\n
Post-mortem examinations are described in the report as “one of the most informative investigations in medicine” which can provide objective information on the cause of death and advance medical knowledge.<\/p>\n
For bereaved families, the report says, they can “provide information about the risk of inherited diseases, which might be of benefit to family members in seeking necessary care and treatment” and can also contribute “to the fight against disease and how it can best be treated”.<\/p>\n
The audit also found that management of temporarily retained organs was also not in line with the guidelines.<\/p>\n
It found that instead of offering bereaved families the options of a hospital-arranged burial or cremation of retained organs, in six of the 12 hospitals only one option as offered. According to the audit, this “risks causing distress to families due to cultural or religious sensitivities”.<\/p>\n
While hospitals are also required to keep a record of the final post-mortem examination report date, at Cork University Hospital (CUH), this was not being done.<\/p>\n
Post-mortem examinations are performed by an Assistant State Pathologist at the hospital and since the reports are provided directly to the coroner, “CUH do not receive the final report and therefore are unable to record the dates”.<\/p>\n
“Both the Assistant State Pathologist and the Cork Coroner confirmed they are unwilling to provide this information to the HSE, citing their independent status,” according to the audit.<\/p>\n
“Consequently, hospitals cannot obtain this date, which hinders their ability to determine required timelines for the sensitive disposal of retained organs,” according to the report.<\/p>\n
At the Coombe Hospital, the audit noted eight discrepancies with their organ retention register.<\/p>\n
While the Coombe, has stated that this was caused by “a lack of timely and accurate updating rather than inappropriate management of organs” and has now been resolved, the audit states that “this will need to be independently verified at Regional level”.<\/p>\n
The report shows that by June last year when the audits were carried out, Cork University Hospital had carried out 980 post-mortem examinations, the highest number of all hospitals reviewed. In 2024, a total of 456 were carried out. The lowest number were carried out at Children’s Health Ireland at Crumlin, with just 15 carried out by mid-year last year and 41 in 2024.<\/p>\n
The 2025 audit on post-mortem examinations and organ retention follows a series of controversies about organ retention at Irish hospitals in recent times.<\/p>\n
In 2022, an earlier HSE audit found that several Irish hospitals sent the organs of deceased babies and adults for incineration without family knowledge or consent, in breach of the old guidelines. This followed a 2021 RT\u00c9 Investigates report which revealed that babies\u2019 organs were being sent abroad for incineration with clinical waste without the knowledge of families by Cork University Maternity Hospital.<\/p>\n
In a statement to Prime Time, the HSE said that following the 2025 audit: “A comprehensive training programme is currently being developed to ensure that staff are aware and follow the necessary compliance with new clinical guidelines for post mortem examinations. A review group has been formed and is currently undertaking a consultation process with key stakeholders.”<\/p>\n
The HSE also says that “it\u2019s hoped that this programme will be available to all staff nationally by the end of 2026”.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"An internal HSE audit of 12 hospitals carried out last year has found that “essential post-mortem training” has…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":494153,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[61,60,43],"class_list":["post-494152","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ireland","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/494152","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=494152"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/494152\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/494153"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=494152"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=494152"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=494152"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}