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Court denies mother's attempt to use her dead daughter's frozen eggs

The daughter died in 2011 at age 28 and had signed a consent form agreeing that her eggs could be stored after her death.

THE LONDON HIGH Court has denied an attempt by a woman to use her dead daughter’s frozen eggs to create her own grandchild, after deciding it wasn’t clear whether the daughter wanted the procedure.

The daughter died in 2011 at age 28 and had signed a consent form agreeing that her eggs could be stored after her death but had not specified how they should be used.

In the ruling issued today, the UK court rejected a request by an unnamed woman and her husband to send her daughter’s eggs to a US fertility clinic, where they would have been fertilised and transferred into the woman.

Britain’s fertility regulator, The Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority (HFEA), refused to ship the eggs abroad, arguing there was no clear proof the daughter wanted her mother to use her eggs.

The BBC reports Justice Ouseley said:

“I must dismiss this claim, though I do so conscious of the additional distress which this will bring to the claimants, whose aim has been to honour their daughter’s dying wish for something of her to live on after her untimely death.”

It was claimed the daughter, “A”, had her eggs frozen after being diagnosed with bowel cancer at the age of 23.

The BBC reports that her parents say she asked her mother to “carry my babies” when she knew there was no hope she would survive.

The mother said her daughter had told her:

“I didn’t go through IVF to save my eggs for nothing.

“I want you and Dad to bring them up, they will be safe with you.”

Additional reporting Associated Press

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25 Comments
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    Mute One Human Being
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    Oct 23rd 2014, 12:43 PM

    Now if only he could reduce the administration staff and increase frontline staff then we might go towards fixing some of the issues within the Irish healthcare system.

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    Mute David Burke
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    Oct 23rd 2014, 1:04 PM

    Everyone likes the sound of that but it’s often madness.

    Medical treatment requires admin so appointments get scheduled and the right leg gets chopped off.

    You get rid of the admin staff and the paperwork doesn’t go away. So instead of €30,000 a year clerical worker doing the paperwork you have a an experienced highly qualified senior pediatric nurse earning €70,000 doing the paperwork.

    Blanket calls to get rid of admin staff don’t make sense. Bloods still need to go to the labs, results collected, patient files put together and then filed. Who does that work if you get rid of admin staff.

    Health systems are complicated and it’s universal setup. For every soldier on the front line in the US military are there are 3 in logistics, communication, support, intelligence, command etc.

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    Mute Peter M Buchanan
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    Oct 23rd 2014, 1:16 PM

    Everything here of IT ???

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    Mute One Human Being
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    Oct 23rd 2014, 2:29 PM

    I understand the need for some administrative staff but during the amalgamation of the Hse lots of areas where merged thus creating multiple areas with staff doing the same job. While getting two letters to remind you of an appointment is good. The vast wastage is what’s is dragging the health board into overspending each year.

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    Mute Scarr
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    Oct 23rd 2014, 2:30 PM

    Any particular % of admin staff you would like to sack? It’s normally a 50% figure people pick out of their ar$e when they raise this overly simplistic solution to a complex problem.
    Does anyone honestly think that chopping a bunch of admin heads is going to cure health? If you do, you’re a bit of a plonker.

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    Mute Marguerite Hoiby
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    Oct 23rd 2014, 5:05 PM

    what you state here that admin staff do can be achieved with proper IT systems in place.

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    Mute Triona Murphy
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    Oct 23rd 2014, 9:46 PM

    Couldn’t agree more.a careful look at all the grade 8s however…..??

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    Mute Ryan Carroll
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    Oct 23rd 2014, 12:44 PM

    This is the same tinkering around the edges that M Martin took credit for…certain illnesses have gone down….er…ok great…but we were expecting a big set of reforms lads and so in contrast to that your improvements look pretty small.
    Remember the UHI plan? Were the only developed country besides US that does not have universal healthcare. I think even if it was a public insurance option (where people could keep separate private insurance for private hospitals if they wanted) of 400-500 year and then EVERYTHING is covered people would still like that, hell I’d take even the messy inefficient universal private insurance plan over what we have now.
    We don’t even need to do insurance at all. The UK has a centrally funded system so does Canada, why can’t we just do that, phase that in, and leave people to buy private insurance for private hospitals separate if they so choose…everyone happy then.

    But before we do UI we need a minister with the balls to tackle the staff duplication and triplication that came when the HSE was created. The HSE was meant to REPLACE all the health boards but instead they MERGED them. The unions seem to object to even internal transfers. The second cafe in one hospital closed and they wanted to transfer the staff to a cafe at another hospital, but they refused and wanted to stay in the same hospital…so they put them in admin…people with catering experience…in admin…where two of them promptly delayed my cancer diagnoses by 4 weeks. We need to tackle this inefficiency and get UH in place, I wonder how much we’d save towards the extra 4b UH would cost if we got rid of all that surplus staff or even assigned them more efficiently?
    This is one thing that puts me off about politics there are never any bold or innovative ideas it’s all small scale thinking and tinkering.

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    Mute David Burke
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    Oct 23rd 2014, 12:58 PM

    Why not leprechauns ?

    400-500 Euro insurance which covers everything? That doesn’t exist. Wish it did, it doesn’t.

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    Mute Scarr
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    Oct 23rd 2014, 2:33 PM

    Ryan – they’ve looked at the Dutch model of uhi, a system the Dutch are getting rid of; so that’s not a good start.
    The figures for providing uhi, when we were all still talking about it, wouldn’t be far off 3 times the amount you propose in your post.

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    Mute David Burke
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    Oct 23rd 2014, 12:56 PM

    HIQA is a pain in the hole but great. Most places have HIQA reports online. You can look at nursing home or disability centres and see how they do.

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    Mute Kerry Blake
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    Oct 23rd 2014, 12:50 PM

    He would be more believable if he had taken up the nurses offer to do a hospital shift with them. At least some might think he knows what he is talking about.

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    Mute David Burke
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    Oct 23rd 2014, 12:58 PM

    He was a doctor though….

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    Mute significantrisk
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    Oct 23rd 2014, 1:00 PM

    Nonsense. A doctor doing a nursing shift is a liability. Leo served his time on the front lines – showboating and pretending to be a nurse, getting in the way, would only hinder any effort at improving care.

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    Mute Kerry Blake
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    Oct 23rd 2014, 1:31 PM

    It would mean he would experience the conditions the nurses deal with now not when he qualified. No one asked him to be a nurse just observe a bit of a difference .

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    Mute significantrisk
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    Oct 23rd 2014, 1:55 PM

    He’s well aware of the conditions our nursing colleagues work under.

    Play acting at being a nurse wouldn’t change that.

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    Mute Rory Naughton
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    Oct 23rd 2014, 2:06 PM

    I think it should be noted that he worked in medicine for a brief period of time(2 or 3 years?) and, as he mentioned, it was in a different era (pre 2007) in a very different environment. The healthcare system is far more stretched with staff morale far lower now than it was then.
    He also seems to be somewhat economical with the truth.
    For example: there is some dedicated ambulance transfer services but not the way he paints it. So there’s a neonatal service run by the 3 Dublin NICUs. Then there’s a single critical care ambulance which, unless things have changed in the past year, is run 9-5 Mon-Fri again from Dublin. Otherwise little has changed with the hospital losing a doctor/nurse for the duration of the transfer.

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    Mute Zoë Georgina
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    Oct 23rd 2014, 12:46 PM

    Not entirely sure where he’s getting his figures on long-term disabilities…

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    Mute Richard Armstrong
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    Oct 23rd 2014, 3:25 PM

    errr “in patient transfer teams” dont exist – i’ve had to do that

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    Mute edel ryan
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    Oct 23rd 2014, 4:33 PM

    The dogs on the street know the health “service” is a DISGRACE

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    Mute Andrew Halpin
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    Oct 23rd 2014, 11:50 PM

    Yeah he’s got top people formerly of the department of justice helping to run things the new way.

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