http://www.trinidadexpress.com/index.pl/article_news?id=121439309
COURT MOVES TO SAVE BABYJehovah's Witnesses protest life-saving transfusion
Darren Bahaw [email protected]
Friday, December 9th 2005
AS LIFE trickled out of a two-week-old baby boy yesterday, the High Court seized the child from his parents and authorised a life-saving blood transfusion.
The dramatic action took place behind closed doors after the child's parents refused the transfusion on religious grounds even after the infant's twin died of similar complications.
Justice Maureen Rajnauth-Lee, presiding in the Family Court at Nipdec House, yesterday granted an application making the infant a ward of the court.
The court order directed that the child would remain under the custody of doctors at the Neonatal Unit until he is fully recuperated.
With the clock ticking down, Head of the Neonatal Unit, Dr Petronella Manning-Alleyne approached the Solicitor General Department requesting help yesterday morning, the Express learned.
In an almost immediate response Attorney General John Jeremie gave the authorisation for an application to be made before the High Court to make the baby a ward of the Court to allow for the infant to receive the blood transfusion and any other medical treatment.
In the application, Justice Rajnauth-Lee was informed that the surviving child was born with low blood count on November 25.
Eight days later, on December 3, the infant suffered more complications after he was diagnosed with "unanticipated bleeding" in the lungs which resulted in an even lower blood count.
The judge was advised that newborns cannot produce their own blood cells to rejuvenate themselves. Rajnauth-Lee was also informed that the child, who was hooked up to a ventilator, required immediate help and in order to remove the child from the ventilator he needed blood transfusions.
The Express learned that the situation developed after Joanne Ammon, of Waterloo Road, Arouca, gave birth to twins at the Port of Spain General Hospital.
The average weight of each baby was one pound, 12 ounces.
They were born prematurely, about six-months into Ammon's pregnancy.
Hours after the twins were born, one of them died of shock due to an "extremely low blood count", the Express was told.
The surviving baby was being prepared last night to undergo his first blood transfusion at the ICU of the Neonatal Ward and doctors anticipated that he would remain a patient for the next two months.
The parents, Joanne and Winston Ammon Jr, who belong to the Jehovah's Witness faith, had objected to the blood transfusion on the basis of their religious beliefs.
Jehovah Witnesses do not accept transfusions of whole blood or major blood components, one member of the faith told the Express.
Instead, they seek the use of non-blood medical alternatives which are used in hospitals around the world and in cases where the patient is over 18 years of age, the decision to accept or refuse treatment requiring blood is left up to the patient, the elder, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said.