NHS officials and the Scottish Government have come under fire after it was revealed that they ordered the "inhumane" communal cremation of dead babies.
The revelation follows the publication of a damning report into the baby ashes scandal and practices at Edinburgh's Mortonhall Crematorium.
Rules on collective cremations of foetuses in adult-sized coffins were relaxed in the code of practice drawn up by the Federation of Burial and Cremation Authorities (FBCA) in 2000.
Willie Reid, a parent and chairman of the Mortonhall Ashes Action Group, said he was shocked by the findings and repeated his calls for a public inquiry.
The report into the scandal recorded the former crematorium manager, George Bell, recalling foetal remains being brought from Edinburgh's Sick Kids hospital in little coffins.
He told the inquiry: "The FBCA code stated that there should only be one body cremated at one time."
But he said a bereavement counsellor at Edinburgh Royal Infirmary (ERI) later approached him on the instructions of the chief midwife and other senior managers about how to reduce costs.
Mr Bell said: "We were approached by NHS to carry out communal cremations, which we did. Rather than do it individually, they did it by the bulk. I need to emphasise that it was on their request.
"Staff accepted this practice because it was perfectly legal."
Fiona Mitchell, general manager of women's and children's services at NHS Lothian, said: "We are still considering the report as a whole."
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article