14-year old leukemia patient dies after rejecting transfusions
A 14-year-old boy died Wednesday night in Seattle, hours after a Skagit County judge affirmed his right to reject treatment.
Dennis Lindberg, of Mount Vernon, died around 6 p.m. at Children’s Hospital & Regional Medical Center in Seattle. As a Jehovah’s Witness, Lindberg refused blood transfusions in his fight against leukemia, against doctors’ advice that he needed the transfusions to survive.
In court Wednesday, Superior Court Judge John Meyer said that Lindberg, though in the eighth grade, had the right to make that decision.
Doctors at Children’s diagnosed Lindberg’s leukemia early this month and began giving him chemotherapy. Because such treatment destroys the body’s ability to make red blood cells, transfusions were necessary, doctors said.
Lindberg’s relatives were in disagreement about whether the boy should have been forced to get the transfusions. His aunt, who was his legal guardian and is also a Jehovah’s Witness, supported his decision to refuse them. Lindberg’s parents, who live in Idaho, disagreed with their son and his guardian.
His doctors at Children’s supported the boy’s decision, Meyer said, although one doctor told the judge earlier that the boy’s blood count was so low he could die overnight. The case came to court after officials at Children’s reported it to the state, which went to court to force the transfusion.
Ethics experts and Jehovah’s Witness officials said such a court case is unusual these days.
“With an adolescent, the situation is much more complex,” says Dr. Doug Diekema, an ethics consultant at the hospital. “We all know that 14-year-olds change their minds; they become adults, and they have completely different belief systems. And that makes you nervous.”
Unlike the situation with very young children, “with adolescents, I think we find ourselves much more profoundly conflicted.”
Dr. Benjamin Wilfond, the hospital’s director of pediatric bioethics, said medical providers, along with parents, try to balance competing needs. “You’re trying to respect their wishes, their evolving autonomy, balanced against wanting to protect them. Often, it’s difficult to achieve both under all circumstances.”
(Source)
Comment from Jerry Jones
Time November 30, 2007 at 3:27 pm
THE MORAL OF THIS STORY IS THAT IT IS SAFER FOR CHILDREN TO BE REARED BY DRUG ABUSERS THAN BY JEHOVAH’S WITNESSES.
With that point made, the DEATH of this CHILD is a SCANDAL.
The District Attorney needs to investigate why Children’s Hospital waited until it was too late for blood transfusions to help, instead of requesting an emergency court hearing as soon as it was obvious that transfusions would eventually be necessary. Start with the so-called “Ethicist” at the Hospital.
Summaries of over 225 similiar Jehovah’s Witness Court Cases are found at:
BLOOD TRANSFUSIONS AND OTHER LEGAL ISSUES AFFECTING CHILDREN OF JEHOVAH’S WITNESSES
HTTP://JWDIVORCES.BRAVEHOST.COM
Reviewing these similar cases at this website reveals that typically only Hospitals that agree with the Jehovah’s Witnesses position, and wanting to uphold such, would delay seeking court intervention in such an obvious situation.