Arnhem’s Rijnstate hospital is investigating a former doctor who may have used his own sperm to impregnate women through artificial insemination in the 1980s. The hospital announced this on Friday announced. It is not known how many children were born this way.
The hospital said the issue became known on Thursday. The doctor previously denied being guilty of this, but according to Rijnstate he has now admitted. The man no longer works at the hospital. The matter has been reported to the Healthcare and Youth Inspectorate (IGJ).
Rijnstate has previously been discredited due to abuses with the sperm bank. Brought in 2017 de Volkskrant it emerged that the hospital had used sperm from fifteen donors more often than legally permitted, for which Rijnstate was reprimanded by the IGJ at the time. A former employee complained about sloppy administration.
Previous abuses
According to Rijnstate, the fact that possible malpractice has once again come to light “fits in with the picture of abuses that occurred in the hospital’s past.” Afterwards, the hospital said it launched an independent investigation and put the administration and protocols in order.
Rijnstate does not respond to questions from NRC. The hospital does not want to say whether the news is related to the four-part documentary KRO-NCRV will broadcast next week about the Arnhem sperm bank.
Abuses have also come to light in other sperm banks. In recent years, gynecologists such as Jan Karbaat (Bijdorp Medical Center in Barendrecht), Jan Wildschut (Sophia Hospital in Zwolle) and Henk Nagel (Carolus Hospital in Den Bosch) appeared to have used their own sperm on a large scale for artificial insemination.
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