Judge clears way for ill baby to have transfusion

A seriously ill baby can be given a life-saving blood transfusion despite the objections of his Jehovah’s Witness parents.

In the High Court yesterday, Mr Justice George Bermingham refused to lift an order which allows doctors to administer a transfusion, if absolutely necessary, to the nine-day-old boy who was born 10 weeks prematurely.

The judge warned he would not engage in “brinkmanship” by deferring matters until the baby’s condition deteriorated further.

The parents, who are Polish, are devout Jehovah’s Witnesses and object to the use of products containing red blood cells.

The infant, known as Baby B, was born in Ballinasloe, Co Galway, on December 20. He weighs less than 1kg and has only 3 fluid ounces of blood in his system.

If he loses as little as two tea- spoonfuls of blood his life is under imminent threat, according to a leading consultant who is treating the baby.

Judge Bermingham yesterday said the baby’s life was under threat, and he would not risk any delays that might arise if the case had to come back before the High Court again.

The judge already ruled on Christmas Eve that the infant must be given a blood transfusion if his life is in danger — despite his parents’ objections.

The order was granted weeks before the High Court is due to hand down a landmark ruling in a legal action between the Coombe Maternity Hospital and a 24-year-old Congolese woman it administered a blood transfusion to last year.

In that case the Jehovah’s Witness — who objected to the procedure — lost 80pc of her blood following the birth of her baby boy.

This new case affects the rights of a child, whose life is still considered to be under threat, and the rights of parents to have treatment withheld.

Intervene

Yesterday, at a special sitting of the High Court, Judge Bermingham extended a court order allowing doctors to intervene to save Baby B’s life after consultant neonatologist Dr John Murphy warned that if his haemoglobin levels (red blood cell count) continue to drop at their current rate, he will need a life-saving blood transfusion within days.

He said that given an overnight drop in the baby’s haemoglobin levels, he could not see how it could be argued that the child’s life was not under “immediate threat”.

Within days of his birth, Baby B was transferred to Crumlin Children’s Hospital in Dublin for surgical assessment and later moved to the National Maternity Hospital at Holles Street.

He is currently being cared for in the top-category intensive care unit there.

On December 23, the child’s father, known as Mr B, was informed that his young son might need a blood transfusion.

But the Polish couple, who have allowed doctors to administer anti-clotting agents which do not contain red blood cells to their son, objected to the procedure on religious grounds.

On Christmas Eve morning, following routine ward rounds, doctors and legal advisers at Holles Street sought an emergency High Court order as “reassurance” to intervene in the event of a further decline in Baby B’s condition.

Yesterday the court heard that Baby B’s haemoglobin levels have plummeted from 16.8g per decilitre to 10.5g per decilitre in less than a week, including an overnight drop of some 1.9g.

If his haemoglobin levels fall between 7g and 9g per decilitre and he does not receive a blood transfusion, he is at risk of heart failure, according to his consultant.

“It is unpredictable, this is not an order that I seek lightly,” said Dr Murphy, who gave evidence yesterday and explained that the hospital was using micro-technologies to take blood from Baby B.

The judge acknowledged that the baby’s parents, who are Polish and live in the Midlands, consider blood transfusions as “anathema” to their deeply held religious views.

But he said it was ultimately for the medical personnel there to decide when the child’s condition was critical and required intervention.

Harry Homan, a Jehovah’s Witness spokesman and member of the Dublin Hospital Liaison committee said Baby B’s parents would reflect on the ruling. But a Supreme Court appeal against yesterday’s order was said to be “unlikely”.

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