| SOUL OVER BODY: Daisy Tesra (above) whose parents refused to allow her to be given blood during her operation; (below) a Jehovah?s Witnesses congregation in Madrid | | It was April last year. Doctors at the emergency ward of Genesis Hospital, off Calcutta?s E.M. Bypass, received a strange request from parents of a 19-year-old girl who was rushed in for a gall bladder operation. ?Please don?t give her any blood,? Daisy Tesra?s parents pleaded, explaining, ?We are Jehovah?s Witnesses.? While Dr Purnendu Roy, chief surgeon, was unwilling to take the risk of conducting surgery without being able to administer blood, he was aware of the implications a transfusion might have on Daisy?s family life. ?She was in a fairly critical condition,? he recalls, ?and may have needed blood, but from my days of practice in England, I had come across cases in which families actually disowned patients who had received blood.? Members of Jehovah?s Witnesses (a Christian cult that came into being in Pennsylvania, US, in the 1870s, as a small Bible group led by Charles Taze Russel) are forbidden to give or receive blood. And in the event that they do, they not only risk being excommunicated but also being shunned by their immediate families. ?We prefer to call it ?dis-fellowshipping? from the congregation rather than excommunication,? says Sephas Lewis, a community elder of the small but growing Calcutta chapter of the group (there are approximately 300 Jehovah?s Witnesses in and around the city at the moment). Lewis explains, ?The Bible has laid down certain guidelines by which we should live. Among these principles ? which includes that we should refrain from lying, cheating, etc. ? is the commandment in Chapter 9, Verse 5, of the Book of Genesis that we should not ?eat blood? that is considered the soul of the flesh. And receiving blood is tantamount to the violation of this law.? He adds that it is in Chapter 17, Verse 10, of the Book of Leviticus that one finds the justification for families to abandon members ?who sin against the word of God or Jehovah, the Creator?. It states: ?As for any man?who is residing?in your midst, who eats any sort of blood, I shall certainly set my face against the soul that is eating the blood, and I shall indeed cut him off from among his people.? When a member goes ?astray?, community elders meet to discuss ?how gravely the scriptural code has been broken? and ?what measures can be taken to discipline the errant person?. Subsequently, he or she is informed of the ?dis-fellowshipping?, either in private or openly in church. Sudipto Goswami, owner of Genesis, recounts cases in the West where patients were ?left high and dry? at the hospital, when family members came to know that they had received blood. A New York attorney, who had to be given blood during an operation eight years ago, subsequently had to cut off ties with her mother, a divorcée. She left home and now lives with her fiancé and to this day, her mother doesn?t speak to her. And while Dr Roy wanted to do everything possible to save the life of ?this sweet little girl? he didn?t want the same fate to befall her. He attempted to convince her parents of the seriousness of the situation. But, from his experience the doctor knew that ?members of this community would rather die than be given blood.? But Daisy, in severe pain and wanting to live more than anything else, asked the doctor to go ahead with the operation. Ultimately though, she did not need a blood transfusion. ?It was a difficult and nerve-wracking surgery,? says Dr Roy. ?I followed a different technique ? operating millilitre by millilitre so that not a drop of extra blood would spill. You have to be extraordinarily careful while conducting an operation like this, but in the end it was successful.? Today, Daisy lives at home in Joka with her family ? her parents and younger brother. Her parents thank the doctors and Jehovah. ?When my daughter was ill, my colleagues used to be angry with me, asking me, ?How can you be so cruel?, ?Do you want your daughter to die??? says her mother. ?But it was God?s law and we didn?t dare break it?we knew Jehovah would save her and look, today, my daughter is okay.? Lewis reveals that even when a member has been excommunicated, the community is always ready to receive him/her back. ?That is, unless the person is unrepentant or persistently commits wrongful acts of wickedness,? he says. ?After all, our endeavour is simply to discipline the person and deal with him mercifully to help him conform to God?s will.? But it was not all this that gave Daisy courage in the moments that led to her decision to go ahead with the operation ? with or without blood. As she prunes the leaves of the plants in her backyard garden, she admits to have felt an overwhelming desire for life, despite her fear of losing her religion and even her family. |