ESSEX, England, Aug. 23 (UPI) -- A British mother has received damages from a hospital where a receptionist handed her an envelope containing skin and tissue from her stillborn baby.

"I can't believe anybody could be so unfeeling as to behave in this way," Danielle Tivey, 27, said in a statement reported by the Daily Mirror Tuesday.


The newspaper said she had to fight for eight months to get the remains of her son Tommy, who was stillborn, when she gave birth to his healthy twin, Alfy, in January 2007 at Southend Hospital in Essex.

She received "substantial damages," the Mirror said, but did not disclose the amount.

Tivey, of Canvey Island, Essex, was told of Tommy's death after an ultrasound about a month before she was to give birth and later told doctors she wanted his remains so he could be given a funeral.

But the hospital lost forms in which she said she wanted the remains.

She received remains when a hospital receptionist handed her a brown envelope containing skin and tissue samples encased in six wax blocks.

Tivey said she became sickened and suffered nightmares.

"This demonstrates quite appalling incompetence and insensitivity by the hospital," said James Sherwin, a medical negligence specialist with Attwaters solicitors, which handled the case.

In a statement, the hospital said an apology was delivered to the family "for the insensitive management of their bereavement."

The hospital says it has revised bereavement services, information processes and counseling.