• Ugeskrift for laeger · Feb 1991

    Review

    [Blood transfusion and Jehovah's witnesses. Ethical and medicolegal aspects].

    • F Knudsen and H Guldager.
    • Anaestesi-og intensivafdelingen, Københavns Amts Sygehus i Herlev.
    • Ugeskr. Laeg. 1991 Feb 25; 153 (9): 632-6.

    AbstractJehovah's witnesses refuse transfusion of blood and blood products on the basis of religious convictions even when transfusion is considered necessary to save life. Medical treatment of these patients presents an ethical challenge for the physicians. The legal aspects of either administering blood to or withholding necessary blood transfusion from a Jehovah's witness are not clarified. Competent adult patients cannot be treated against their will. Children and unconscious patients must be treated according to "jus necessitatis". Whether a competent advance directive from a patient before an operation in general anaesthesia can be or must be respected is legally obscure. Final clarification of the patients' rights and the physicians' legal status could be obtained by an amendment to the existing Practice of Medicine Acts as proposed in the report (1184) from the Danish Ministry of Justice. The ethical aspects of administering blood to or withholding blood from these patients are also complex. It is recommended to determine one's own attitude individually and to inform the patient about this before an operation.

      Pubmed     Copy Citation     Plaintext  

      Add institutional full text...

    Notes

     
    Knowledge, pearl, summary or comment to share?
    300 characters remaining
    help        
    You can also include formatting, links, images and footnotes in your notes
    • Simple formatting can be added to notes, such as *italics*, _underline_ or **bold**.
    • Superscript can be denoted by <sup>text</sup> and subscript <sub>text</sub>.
    • Numbered or bulleted lists can be created using either numbered lines 1. 2. 3., hyphens - or asterisks *.
    • Links can be included with: [my link to pubmed](http://pubmed.com)
    • Images can be included with: ![alt text](https://bestmedicaljournal.com/study_graph.jpg "Image Title Text")
    • For footnotes use [^1](This is a footnote.) inline.
    • Or use an inline reference [^1] to refer to a longer footnote elseweher in the document [^1]: This is a long footnote..

    hide…