Blood Transfusions

Press, Volume XCIX, Issue 29250, 7 July 1960, Page 12

Blood Transfusions

The refusal of Jehovah’s Witnesses to sanction blood transfusions creates legal and medical problems for which Great Britain and Australia have adopted specific legislative ■ remedies. In New Zealand public attention was drawn to ths question by the death of a 39-year-old woman at the Napier Hospital in May, and by the illness of a 17-year-old girl in Auckland. The latter case has prompted the Auckland Hospital Board to press for legislation “to overcome the situation “ where there is a clear-cut “ refusal by parents or guar“dians of medical treatment to " minors under 16 years of age “ which is considered by medical “ men as essential for the “ saving of human lives ” Only a few weeks ago the Marlborough Hospital Board sought a ruling from the Health Department on the legal rights of medical superintendents in transfusing blootj to a child when the parents could not be reached or refused consent. The Marlborough board was advised that the Superintendent of Child Welfare was “ apparently satis- “ fled that, should the welfare “ot a child be threatened for '“any reason, the existing provisions of the Child Welfare “ Act, 1925, were sufficiently “flexible to enable application “to be made to the Children's “Court to have the guardian“ship of the child transferred “to him ” A Court order would enable the Superintendent of Child Welfare to consent to any medical or surgical treatment considered necessary. The Director of the Hospitals Division (Dr. C. A. Taylor) assured the Marlborough board that an emergency application for a transfer of guardianship could be dealt with very quickly, “so that the time “ factor need not necessarily *be “ a problem However, wrote Dr. Taylor, it was important that any decision to override parents' wishes should be taken by a competent tribunal after hearing the evidence of all z parties. The procedure outlined to the Marlborough board has been invoked in other countries to save children’s lives: and it appears equally justifiable in New Zealand to protect children against omissions to which, ’f they possessed adult judgment, they might not have consented. In Auckland the Crown Solicitor (Mr G. S. R Meredith) has raised the " vexed question ” of the age at which any person can legally consent to or refuse medical treatment—an age I which, as Mr Meredith implied, may be much lower than 21. In the terms of the Child

Welfare Act a child is ordinarily a person under the age of 17. The Government should hesitate to introduce legislation such as the Auckland Hospital Board is seeking unless it is satisfied that continued reliance on the provisions of the Child Welfare Act will not serve the best interests of children. As a result of religious objections to blood transfusions two fundamental principles of English law are brought into conflict. The first is that human life is sacrosanct and therefore must be preserved by all practicable means even against suicidal impulses. The second principle is the freedom of the individual adult to act as' he pleases within the laws of his country. Everybody must sympathise with doctors who are frustrated and alarmed by patients’ refusal to accept treatment without which death may be inevitable. The difficulties faced by the medical profession were cogently summarised in a letter to the “New Zealand “ Medical Journal ” from three Napier doctors. The writers distinguished carefully between the effects of a parent’s refusal to sanction transfusions for his child and .those of an adult's refusal to accept transfusions himself. They concluded that legislation forcing transfusions upon adults against their will would not be feasible. It is a sound conclusion, based upon the paramount rule that, provided he injures hobody else, every adult should be as tree as possible to exercise his own judgment, to adhere to sincerely-held beliefs, and to determine the course of his own life.