Shock and disgust as body parts scandal is exposed
THE recent scandal of an abandoned medical site full of dismembered human limbs and clinical waste has appalled many readers.
Yesterday, the Chronicle exposed the state of a disused Healthcare Environmental Services base in Benton, Newcastle, which is piled high with body parts and rubbish.
A former employee claimed that there are fridges packed with human remains from surgical training including heads, torsos, arms and legs.
Lots of readers took to social media to voice their disgust at the revelations with many slamming the treatment of the dead as “disrespectful”.
Lorraine Appleby from Gateshead wrote on Facebook: “This is absolutely shocking. Those body parts are from someone’s loved one.”
Another user with the name ‘Geordie Mick,’ said: “So after they are finished with the body they just throw it in the bin?
“Do you not think that’s disrespectful, hospitals should dispose of the body properly.”
He added: “People are donating bodies to help for training and they treat the bodies like s***.”
But not everyone agreed that the stockpiling of body parts was necessarily disrespectful and argued that people who donated their corpse to medical research would not be bothered.
Victoria Ellis said: “When you donate your body to science you don’t get a nice burial, you know what you’re signing up to.
“You’re chopped up and used for training or research and when you’ve served your purpose the hospital or clinic or place of education hire a service to dispose of the parts properly.
“In this case HES who didn’t carry out the job they were paid to do no wonder the NHS won’t touch them anymore.
“I wonder what HES spent the money on. I don’t know how it’s gone on so long without anybody noticing, the place must smell horrendous.”
HES lost its contracts with NHS Scotland and 17 NHS trusts in England, but denied it was responsible for stockpiling body parts.
The English and Scottish health boards have now cancelled their contracts, causing the firm’s collapse.
The former employee, who said the site has not been cleared since the firm’s collapse, claimed:
■ The Benton site remains full of clinical, pharmaceutical, and surgical waste - some of which is deemed highly infectious and toxic.
■ Flies were being attracted to the site by the “rotting” waste.
■ The centre’s fridge still contains 770-litre bins containing body parts such as heads, torsos, arms, and legs from surgical training.
■ An estimated 60 bins worth of clinical waste are still “lying around” in the depot hall.
■ Waste was also being stored in trailers in the site’s yard.
HES have denied any wrongdoing. A statement released last year said: “HES has never stockpiled hundreds of tonnes of human body parts and dangerous waste at any of our sites throughout the UK.
“The amount of anatomical waste we collect in England each week only amounts to 1% of the overall tonnage of waste collected.”