It concerned the death of a beautiful, 21-year-old girl called Laura.
Though young, Laura had a two-year-old child called Marcie, who was left an orphan but is now being looked after by her grandmother, Laura's mother, Rachel.

Tragic though these circumstances are, further tragedy has been piled on this vulnerable little family. Rachel suffers from kidney failure and needs a transplant. She needs it to survive and care for her only child's only child.

Before Laura's death, she had entered her name on the organ donors' register and had even thought about giving her mother one of her own kidneys, when it became urgent, but that was put off, in the hope she might receive one from a dead donor. Little did anyone suspect, at that time, Laura might herself be about to die.

What did the nationalised health service do when that suddenly happened? Naturally, it "harvested" Laura's kidneys but, against the expressed wishes of her and her family, gave them away to strangers.
When it looked down on Laura's lifeless body, it did not see a mother and daughter, an important and integral part of a living family. It saw only a nationalised asset available for distribution in accordance with the priorities of the nationalised health service.

The state apparatchik who was put up to justify the snatching of Laura's body from her family was Mr Adrian MacNeil, chief executive of what is laughingly called the "Human" Tissue Authority, but which I will now think of as the Inhuman Tissue Authority. Disdaining the family's expressed desires, he said all such requests were turned down "as a matter of policy". Laura's body was to be used not to help her own family, but to help whoever the nationalised health service thought most deserving.

Later, on the radio, Mr McNeil comforted himself that Rachel had said she "understood" the decision for which he had been responsible.
Presumably, the man was too insensitive to realise she was hardly likely to say what she really thought about the man who was the only "supplier" of the kidney she would eventually need for her own survival. Then he said he would conduct a review to see whether there might be exceptional circumstances, in future, in which a family may be allowed to keep itself together.

Mr MacNeil sounded like quite a civilised man. It is possible he is kind to dogs and is an accomplished ballroom dancer. He may even have a luxuriant and elaborately trained moustache. Nevertheless, he has been complicit in the tearing asunder of the family of the late Laura Ashworth, may she rest in peace, and in the nationalisation of our very bodies. I wish I could believe in Hell. If I did, I would pray for him to rot in it.