In Bulawayo, a poor seven-year-old lad is desperately clinging to life as his parents, who are staunch Jehovah’s Witnesses allegedly refuse that he undergoes a blood transfusion to conserve his life, citing church religious reasons, Sunday News reports.
The minor (name withheld) who is admitted at the United Bulawayo Hospitals (UBH), has reportedly been in the hospital for the preceding three months, after suffering a cancerous ulcer which saw him losing his left leg.
The report also established that doctors had prescribed that the boy undergoes a blood transfusion before he eventually lost his leg.
“The boy is not producing blood, and the wound is not healing. A few weeks ago his leg fell off on its own, as it was rotting and was dry. Right now he is only receiving medicine to assist him to generate blood, but it appears to be futile. His parents refused him to undergo a blood transfusion, saying it was against their church doctrine,” a source from the hospital told Sunday News.
The workers also alleged that the boy’s mother has held him guard since February to ensure that the hospital does not carry out a blood transfusion as prescribed.
“We are not God and neither do we have the ability to see into the future but the boy doesn’t have much time to live,” said the source.
Sunday News visited the hospital, where it witnessed the boy’s mother standing guard beside his hospital bed. The mother declined to talk to the Press of the issue.
UBH clinical director Dr Narcisius Dzvanga confirmed the issue, saying the hospital was only administering drugs to help the boy generate blood and also to ease the pain.
“It is their religion, and as a hospital, we respect their wishes. The boy is getting injections to help generate blood, but his parents are adamant about getting a blood transfusion. As doctors, we cannot determine much on the boy’s life,” said Dr Dzvanga.
A similar case of a Jehovah’s Witness couple from South Africa was reported in that country after the family refused their chronically ill child undergo a blood transfusion. Their decision ended up being challenged by court.
The court ordered that the five-year-old child who was suffering from sickle cell anaemia be given the blood transfusion, but the parents defied the order saying that they believed there was an alternative medical approach to save him.
For decades now, the Jehovah’s Witnesses believes that it is against God’s will to receive blood hence they refuse blood transfusions, often even if it is their own blood. The willing acceptance of blood transfusions by Jehovah’s Witnesses has occasionally led to expulsion from and ostracisation by their religious community.
Their literature teaches that their refusal of transfusions of blood or its four primary components—red cells, white cells, platelets and plasma—is a non-negotiable religious stand and that those who respect life as a gift from God do not try to sustain life by taking in blood, even in an emergency.
Witnesses are taught that the use of fraction such as albumin, immunoglobulins and haemophiliac preparations are “not absolutely prohibited”, and are instead a matter of personal choice.
The doctrine was introduced in 1945 and has undergone some changes since then.
However, a minority of Jehovah’s Witnesses do not agree that the Bible prohibits blood transfusions, and will, therefore, accept transfusions.
Some Jehovah’s Witnesses may also believe that it is acceptable to receive blood plasma fractions or the reinfusion of their own blood.
Members of the group who voluntarily accept a transfusion and are not deemed repentant are regarded as having disassociated themselves from the group by abandoning its doctrines and are subsequently shunned by members of the organization.
Although accepted by the majority of Jehovah’s Witnesses, a minority does not endorse this doctrine.
The Centers for Disease Control USA estimates that 5 million Americans receive blood transfusions every year. Some of them are Jehovah’s Witnesses, in spite of a strict edict against the practice in their faith.
Given the divergent beliefs about receiving blood amongst followers of the religion, it is imperative that the view of each individual Jehovah’s Witness patient on this aspect be carefully canvassed by the treating practitioner.
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