HOW CAN BLOOD SAVE YOUR LIFE?

YOUR RIGHT IS RECOGNIZED

In many places today, the patient has an inviolable right to decide what treatment he will accept.  The law of informed consent has been based on two premises: first, that a patient has the right to receive sufficient information to make an informed choice about the treatment recommended; and second, that the patient may choose to accept or decline the physician's recommendation. . . . Unless patients are viewed as having the right to say no, as well as yes with conditions, much of the rationale for informed  consent evaporates." -Informed Consent - Legal Theory and Clinical Practice, 1987.

Some patients have encountered resistance when they have tried to exercise their right. It might have been from a friend having strong feelings about a tonsillectomy or about antibiotics.  Or a physician might have been convinced of the rightness of his advice. A hospital official might have disagreed, based on legal or financial interests. 

"Many orthopaedists elect not to operate on [Witness] patients," says Dr. Carl L. Nelson.   "It is our belief that the patient has the right to refuse any type of medical therapy while excluding a particular treatment, such as transfusion, then it should exist as an option." -The Journal of Bone and Joint Surgery, March 1986. 

A considerate patient will not pressure a physician to use a therapy at which the doctor is unskilled.  As Dr. Nelson noted, though, many dedicated physicians can accommodate the patient's beliefs.  A German official advised: "The doctor cannot refuse to render aid . . .  reasoning that with a Jehovah's Witness not all medical alternatives are at his disposal. He still has a duty to render assistance even when the avenues open  to him are reduced."  (Der Frauenarzt, May-June 1983)  Similarly, hospitals exist not merely to make money but to serve  all people without discrimination.  Catholic theologian Richard J. Devine states:  "Although the hospital must make every other medical effort to preserve the patient's life and health, it must ensure that medical care does not violate [his] conscience. Moreover, it  must avoid all forms of coercion, from cajoling the patient to obtaining a court order to face blood transfusion." -Health Progress, June 1989. 

Next time: HOW CAN BLOOD SAVE YOUR LIFE?/RELIEVING LEGAL CONCERNS

From the Watchtower magazine