A NEW STANDARD
A growing number of health care providers are willing
to meet the challenge of treating patients who avoid
blood transfusions.
Prof. Roland Hetzer: "With the development of all
those techniques, there's nothing really specific
about Jehovah's Witnesses anymore. We know that they
don't want blood transfusions and we have the
technology to follow their wish."
Dr. Stephen M. Cohn: "The belief that you don't want
a blood transfusion should not in any way . . . that
should be a tiny part of the whole medical care
environment. That should be acknowledged—put over to
the side, fine—now to the other 99 percent of your
care!"
Major Spry—JW spokesman: "I guess it could be likened
to a patient who is allergic to penicillin. You
wouldn't expect the physician to say, 'Well, I'm
sorry, I can't treat you because I can't administer
penicillin.' No, he simply says, 'We'll give you a
medical alternative. We'll give you another
antibiotic.' Then he gets on with treating the
patient."
Narrator: This enlightened approach to patient care
has exciting implications for the public at large.
Dr. Stephen M. Cohn: "The fact that we couldn't use
blood in Jehovah's Witnesses, we learned how we
didn't have to use blood in many other situations.
So, it has actually propelled us in the right
direction."
Dr. Richard K. Spence: "Transfusion alternatives
clearly, are good medical practice. Sound practice—
safe practice, for a patient."
Dr. Linda Shehling: "Indeed it is a standard that
should be available to all patients."
Dr. Peter Carmel: "What we're talking about here is
going to be a mute point, because bloodless medicine
and surgery will become in the next 5 to 10 years, so
widespread that, it won't be novel anymore."
Eugene Rosam—JW spokesman: "Jehovah's Witnesses have
had the unique privilege, because of their religious
position on the matter, of helping doctors learn
better ways to treat patients without subjecting them
to the risks of blood transfusions."
Prof. Charles H. Baron: "What I have seen in my own
experience is that they have turned the medical
profession around, where the gold standard, is to
treat people without blood."
Narrator: Already some 100,000 physicians worldwide,
are making bloodless medicine and surgery available
to anyone who does not want a blood transfusion. Many
experts agree that in the new future medicine and
surgery without the use of blood transfusions will
become the standard of care for all patients.
"There are now available, techniques in almost every
sub-specialty of surgery and medicine that allow
bloodless treatment, so that we are getting away from
blood transfusions in general."
"As a heart surgeon, I guess it's unusual for a guy
not to like blood, he should like blood, but I
don't—I'm very proud when my patient comes out of the
operation room, and has not received any
transfusion."
"I can see within the next few years, us getting to a
point of where we do not have to even think about
getting blood."
[THE END]