Jehovah Witness patients refusing any blood transfusion.. Why?

[cameroondiva]

I'm very tolerant and respectful of my patients religious preferences. I work in a Cardiovascular ICU. My hospital is known for taking the sickest heart patients for open heart surgery. We've had situations where a Jehovah Witness patient who needed blood transfusion during a CABG or Post-op and eventually died because of their beliefs. I'm just curious what is the basis of that belief? If you are a nurse who is a Jehovah Witness or you know someone who is if you could please explain it to me i'll really appreciate it. Rather than criticize others and their religious beliefs i try to be understanding. The reason i'm asking this is, if you are going to have a CABG or any other Cardiac surgery there is a very high probabilty you may need blood products during the procedure or post op , why take such a risk if you don't want any blood products at all?

[KetuUCF]

Hi Everyone,

I am a new nurse that is one of Jehovah's Witnesses and I know many don't agree with our beliefs on not accepting blood transfusions, but I do appreciate those that want to to try to understand why we do not accept blood transfusions and that at least respect our wishes on not accepting a transfusion. I have a personal experience in this in which my mom had placenta previa, hemorrhaged and was forced into getting a transfusion and ened up aquiring Hepatitis B from the transfusion and is still suffering from the disease's affects today. I will not go into detail about how she got the transfusion.

Anyhow, I decided to post from the official website of our religious organization, www.watchtower.org to try to explain our beliefs on blood transfusion. We also have a couple videos on this called "No Blood--Medicine Meet the Challenge", "Transfusion-Alternative Strategies Simple, Safe Effective", & "Transfusion-Alternative Health Care Meeting Patient Needs & Rights" I pasted the link here as well for those that just want are interested in viewing them.

http://www.watchtower.org/e/vcnb/article_01.htm

http://www.watchtower.org/e/vcae/article_01.htm

http://www.watchtower.org/e/vcnr/article_01.htm

I am not going to debate on who is wrong on right because I personally feel that everyone has a right to what they want to choose to accept or refuse when in comes to healthcare/medicine. Plus this message board is not for this, but we all can learn from each other. Anyhow, hope this helps.

-KetuUCF

JEHOVAH'S WITNESSES

THE SURGICAL/ETHICAL CHALLENGE

Physicians face a special challenge in treating Jehovah's Witnesses. Members of this faith have deep religious convictions against accepting homologous or autologous whole blood, packed RBCs [red blood cells], WBCs [white blood cells], or platelets. Many will allow the use of (non-blood-prime) heart-lung, dialysis, or similar equipment if the extracorporeal circulation is uninterrupted. Medical personnel need not be concerned about liability, for Witnesses will take adequate legal steps to relieve liability as to their informed refusal of blood. They accept nonblood replacement fluids. Using these and other meticulous techniques, physicians are performing major surgery of all types on adult and minor Witness patients. A standard of practice for such patients has thus developed that accords with the tenet of treating the "whole person." (JAMA 1981;246:2471-2472)

[KetuUCF]

oh and i also wanted to share an article from dukehealth about how more research is going into banked blood and that it may not be as effective as researchers once thought it was, here's the link to see where i got the info, but i copied and pasted the article below for those that are interested to read and become more informed about since medicine/nursing is always changing. -ketuucf

http://www.dukehealth.org/healthlibrary/news/10149

banked blood loses ability to deliver oxygen to tissues

by duke medicine news and communications

about this article

article details

published: oct. 8, 2007

updated: oct. 9, 2007

for journalists

reporters & producers can visit duke medicine news and communications for contact information.

[color=#1d4f9f]contact duke medicine news and communications

related content

services

[color=#1d4f9f]blood conservation

on other web sites

youtube

[color=#1d4f9f]banked blood doesn't deliver oxygen: watch a video produced by duke medical center news office

a [color=#1d4f9f]video clip of jonathan stamler is available.

durham, n.c. –almost immediately after it is donated, human blood begins to lose a key gas that opens up blood vessels to facilitate the transfer of oxygen from red blood cells to oxygen-starved tissues.

thus, millions of patients are apparently receiving transfusions with blood that is impaired in its ability to deliver oxygen, according to duke university medical center researchers, who reported the results of their studies in two separate papers appearing early on-line in the proceedings of the national academy of sciences.

they also found that adding this gas back to stored blood before transfusion appears to restore red blood cells' ability to transfer oxygen to tissues. these studies go a long way toward answering a major problem which many physicians are beginning to appreciate – blood transfusions with banked human blood may do more harm than good for a majority of patients, according to the researchers.

over the past five years, many studies, including some performed at duke, have demonstrated that patients who receive blood transfusions have higher incidences of heart attack, heart failure, stroke and even death. while it is known that the banked blood is not the same as blood in the body, the reasons behind blood's association with worse outcomes have not been well-understood.

the key to the current findings is that nitric oxide in red blood cells is crucial to the delivery of oxygen to tissues. nitric oxide keeps the blood vessels open. the new studies demonstrated that nitric oxide in red blood cells begins breaking down almost immediately after red blood cells leave the body.

[nightmare, RN]

If you do a search on 'Jehovah witness blood' you will find a lot of existing threads ,this is one of them.

https://allnurses.com/nursing-issues-patient/caring-jehovahs-witnesses-118304.html

[mommyof2Tees]

i too am one of jehovah's witnesses. you may find the threads helpful, but i am sure that wherever you all live, you either know someone who is a jw (whether a relative, or a co-worker) or a jw comes to your door. we encourage you, to ask any questions to the witnesses direct. threads like these can sometimes lead to wrong information, we rather you go to a true source or the organizations website: www.watchtower.org. the poster ketucf has also listed the website as well as other helpful info.

[nurz2be]

I think if we all look at most religions, what that person(s) do on earth directly and significantly effects their spiritual (everlasting) future. For those who are Christian think on the passage where a man was asked to sacrifice his son, and was willing to do so (most if not all of us now are appalled at the thought of one of our children passing as a direct result of something we do or do not do) and his willingness was acknowledged by God, of course we know the child did not die.

The same has to be examined with other religions, whether we agree or not, it is about their "eternal future." If one is of a religious or spiritual belief that life here (100 years or so is not that long compared to eternity) is short, it is in the "after-life" people seek to reach their place of "fulfillment" and what they do or don't do leads them to or away from that place.

It seems to all go back to acknowledging differences, acknowledging our own perceptions, and being able to accept and lovingly treat those individuals with the same care and respect we treat those with whom our personal values, beliefs and morals are in alignment.

Just thinking out loud.........

[BBFRN, BSN, PhD]

Just a friendly reminder: While one can appreciate the entertainment factor involved in a good intellectual debate about sirloin, I would like to request that we all remain on topic, debate the topic, and refrain from debating each other in an inflammatory manner, please.

Thanks! Carry on...

[jrzgrl08]

I found this website to have information as far as Jehovah's Witnesses and Blood Transfusions..

http://watchtower.org/cgi-bin/lib/ProcessForm.pl

[strengthcouragewisdm]

Odd, I had a JW as a patient a few days ago, and yes they talk about not accepting blood transfusions and their willingness to die for their beliefs. However this patient was to that point and willingly accepted a blood transfusion. However, it was done AFTER the elders had left and other JW's who were there visiting. This case involved a child. The elders were trying to convince the parents to take the child out of the hospital, and to a doctor they knew. It sickened me that they were willing to let this child die. It was an emergent situation and time was not on the child's side. Thankfully the outcome was good only after the child was transfused.