Jehovah's Witness Interference with Pediatric Care

[captainstandup]

First, if this has been addressed in an earlier thread please block it and direct me to the previous discussion.

How many providers have seen parental interference in caring for critical patients by family members of the Jehovah’s Witness "Faith"?

I have personally been involved in at least three cases where pediatric patients were in my opinion killed through parental refusal to accept potentially life saving blood administration therapy. The most recent was a seventeen year old male MVC victim. It took us almost 40 minutes to get this kid out of what was left of his car and all his mother was concerned about was that he not receive blood products. Trauma surgeons told her and the father he would die without blood, yet they refused and consequently killed him.

I know that some state supreme courts have held the Childs constitutional right to life trumps the parents "right" to freedom of religious practice. I have heard of cases where healthcare providers have been successful in obtaining emergency protective custody orders allowing them to proceed with necessary therapy against parental wishes.

I'm curious as to how this is addressed in various EMT City Members response areas.

[DirtyBlackSocks]

Touchy subject.

Logical answers from a medical stand point would be to save the kids life, it sucks being trained to save people and watch them die over some thing like that.

On the other hand faith is a huge part of what keeps people progressing in life and should be respected.

[spenac]

Odds are if a person dies w/o a blood transfusion they would have died with it. If a person is in that bad of shape not hope no matter what fluid is used. Jehovah's Witnesses want the best medical care short of violating God's law as they understand it

( Acts 15: 20,29 amongst others ). Have you ever asked one, politely not rudely, that knocked on your door about why they choose not to take blood? Have you ever researched the subject? To make it easy for you here is a couple of links:

http://www.watchtower.org/e/hb/index.htm

http://www.watchtower.org/e/medical_care_and_blood.htm

http://www.noblood.org/

http://www.time.com/time/reports/heroes/bloodless.html

People have the right to make decisions about their bodys. Parents have the right to decide what care is given to children. Again if you research the subject and actually see what Jehovah's Witnesses believe about it you will see they are not refusing care they are only refusing one form of treatment.

Dirty hit it on the head when he said "On the other hand faith is a huge part of what keeps people progressing in life and should be respected."

[itku2er]

This is a very touchy subject I agree. But you have to respect the wishes of the parents reguardless of your personal feelings. My one time only dealing with this was a family member and it more or less split us as a family for a while. No I am not a Jehovah's Witness but I have family memembers who are. Especially being in health care and knowing how things work.

We do have quiet a few Jehovah's Witness's that live in my area. So actually I am surprised that we havent had more involvement with them on this level.

Spenac and DBS both make good points.....so research it and come to your own conculsion.

ITK

[VentMedic]

Not everybody that needs blood dies. We give transfusions everyday in hospitals for a variety of reasons from medical to trauma. Adults may be able to handle a lower Hb/HCT than children. Children can come through alot but are still fragile.

This happens occasionally in the NICU and PICU so the hospital has all the right numbers for obtaining a court order quickly if needed. It can be interpreted differently if the family initiated medical care by calling 911 or taking the child to the hospital themselves. They may still have some faith in modern medicine. If a neighbor initiated the call there may be reasons to interpret other forms of abuse. Many times the parents are willing to do whatever necessary for their child...until the senior members of their church walks in. The hospital will act in reasonable faith on behalf of the child. As EMS providers, if the family initiated the call, you just do what you can to get the patient to the hospital.

If the family wants to abandon the baby, no problem. We've had babies adopted by nurses or other staff who loved children but were unable to have any of their own. Although, I really find it difficult to see a baby abandoned by an entire family due to religious beliefs.

It doesn't have to involve religion to be a difficult time with parents who have no medical training and are frightened. Discontinuing life support on a child is another difficult issue that may be presented to an ethics committee when the parents are reluctant to decide.

[spenac]

I'm curious as to how this is addressed in various EMT City Members response areas.

Honestly the only thing we need to do as EMS if someone tells us there faith or that they do not want a treatment is tell the hospital that the patient or patients parents stated they are XYZ faith and do not want PQRS treatment. It is not our place to judge.

As to your statement that they killed the child. That is wrong. His injurys killed him. I have seen children die from reactions to transfusions. Would it be fair for me to say the parents killed them for allowing a transfusion? Heck would it be fair to blame parents with children with autism of being bad parents because they allowed shots? What you said and my examples of blame would not be fair or right. There are risks in all medical procedures. In fact there are risks in everything we do everyday including breathing, who's to say what toxic stuff we are breathing at anytime.

To itku2er I am sorry that religion beliefs caused problems in family. Jesus himself basically mentioned faith would divide familys.

I am a Jehovah's Witness. I have heard many misconceptions about us. Sadly one of them is we let our children die. We don't. We pursue the best medical care. What medical procedures we get are our choice , besides accepting whole blood or it's 4 main parts which based on the bible we do not accept. It is just like you going to doctor and being told you need something done. If your like me if your not familiar with it you go home research it then decide whether to get the procedure done or to try an alternative. You make an educated decision and go forward.

I ask all to look at the information on blood transfusions at the links I provided. They are not links to convert your faith they are there to help you understand our medical choice.

[spenac]

Vent thanks for your input. That is sad that someone would abandon their child for any reason. I assure you that the refusal of blood transfusion by a Jehovah's Witness is not abandonment. They still want the best care just minus the blood. There are many bloodless hospitals worldwide now. Many new better procedures that benefit all have been developed because of our stand.

[WelshMedic]

This is, indeed, a very emotive subject. It also happens to be one that tends to polarize opinions, so it's good to see reasoned debate (so far....).

My belief rests in science, and therefore I have little affinity with religion. That applies across the board, coincidentally, and not just on this topic.

I have no problem whatsoever with an adult refusing treatment, on whatever grounds, just as long as they are sound of mind.

However, one of the issues not discussed so far, is that of "informed consent". A child, being a minor, is never able to give informed consent. If a parent denies treatment to a child that susequently dies, the same parent is denying his/her child the right to grow up and decide for themselves whether or not they believe.

My own personal opinion is that in cases such as these, the child should be made a temporary ward of court and be given the necessary treatment. I think we owe that to a child, at the very least.

On a slightly different note, I can't help but wonder how well-informed the Jehova's community is on this subject. I can remember a recent conversation with a Jehova's Witness whereby he swore that a plasma expander exactly the same properties has as whole blood. There was no amount of patient explanation able to get him to see my point of view.

WM

[firedoc5]

To deal with this issue they'd have to start including theology in training. It is definately a touchy subject. We have a lot of amish and menonites in our surrounding area, but so far as I know there hasn't been any kind of issues.

[spenac]

On a slightly different note, I can't help but wonder how well-informed the Jehova's community is on this subject. WM

Thank you for your post.

http://www.watchtower.org/e/vcae/article_01.htm[web:36aa4396e4]http://www.watchtower.org/e/vcae/article_01.htm[/web:36aa4396e4]