WOW LOOK AT THIS
Cost of Jehovah’s Witnesses refusing blood could treat 25,000 in Africa!
BMJ 1999;318:873 ( 27 March )Letters
Costs incurred by one severely ill Jehovah’s Witness could run one unit in Africa for one year
EDITOR Minerva reports that a Jehovah’s Witness survived emergency surgery for a leaking abdominal aneurysm despite havinga post operative haemoglobin concentration of only 30 g/l; he spent14 weeks in hospital.1 Those of us who work in rural Africacan only wonder how much it cost in the face of claims of rationingand cost cutting in the NHS. Such a stay must easily have costa six figure sum.
Here in Uganda for £250 000 a year we can treat 25 000 outpatients and 7000 inpatients, conduct over 1000 deliveries, andperform 1500 operations. We run a community health programme for500 000 people. The costs incurred by this one patient might run our unit for a whole year. Will the time come when a religiousgroup will be charged the costs of keeping its members alive? Ethically one may feel that one should do everything, whateverthe cost; at the end of the financial year, however, electivesurgery that could be life improving has to becancelled.
The choice is easy here in Uganda. When a child who has severe anaemia from malaria with hookworm infestation and undernutrition comes in the choice is simple: he or she has a transfusion ordies.
Nicholas Wooding , Medical superintendent.
Kiwoko Hospital, PO Box 149, Luweero, Uganda
Minerva. BMJ 1998; 317: 690 . (5 September.)
http://www.bmj.com/cgi/content/full/318/7187/873/a Link is still hot