Bloodless Surgery on Infant Sucessful

by purplesofa 12 Replies latest watchtower medical

• 

  purplesofa

  http://www.pharmabiz.com/article/detnews.asp?articleid=53437§ionid=

  Hospitals Group, rectifies complex heart deformity of infant

  Friday, January 08, 2010 08:00 IST
  Our Bureau, Bangalore
  
  Wockhardt Hospitals, now a network hospital of Fortis, has successfully set right a complex heart deformity on a two-year old infant from Nigeria without any blood transfusion.
  
  A team of cardiac experts led by Dr N S Devananda, consultant cardiac surgeon, Wockhardt Hospitals has performed the major open heart surgery. The baby Brendan was suffering from congenital heart defect referred to as Tetralogy of Fallot or complex blue baby syndrome.
  
  “In this syndrome the pure and impure blood gets mixed in the heart and the blood flow to the lungs is decreased. It is the most common complex heart defect, manifested in 55-70 of the cases. It can prove fatal if it is not treated in time,” said Dr Devananda.
  
  A challenge for the cardiac team was that the baby’s parents belonged to the Jehovah Witness community and as per their religious belief, transfusion of blood or use of any blood is unacceptable.
  To handle the blue baby syndrome, surgeons have two treatment options. One is palliative care where no open heart surgery is done and the defect is treated with ‘shunt’ operation. The second is complete repair which is a definitive treatment. Here the patient undergoes an open heart surgery with a heart lung machine. In the case of the infant patient, the cardiac team chose the second option because of its curative value. “But the heart lung machine required 500 ml of blood to drive away the air and ‘still’ haemoglobin at acceptable level. The baby weighed only 11 kilograms with a blood volume of around 900 ml. To conduct an open heart proved difficult without additional usage of blood,” he said.
  
  The team modified the heart lung machine circuit in such a way that the total priming volume was reduced to the least possible. The haemo-filteration technique was used to draw out the excess water from the body before the baby underwent the open heart surgery and was out of ICU within 24 hours. A week after the surgery, cardiac team reported that the infant could now lead an active life like any other child of his age and all post operative tests are normal.
• 

  Doubtfully Yours

  Hurrrrrraaaaaayyyyy!!!!!!!!!!

  No comments on this. But post one one death and every member of this board will jump at it!

  I tell you, for every death due to lack of blood acceptance, which more than likely the person would have died anyway whether they took the blood or not (like it happened to this person in our cong., that got weak and accepted the blood, then died a few days later anyway), there are thousands of successful bloodless interventions!!!

  Yeap, yeap, hurray!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

  DY
• 

  aligot ripounsous

  For sure, JWs have never cared much about advancement of science but it could well be that they have been instrumental in this progress. There is a saying which goes (happily transported by JWs, granted) that two categories of people refuse transfusions, doctors and JWs. I'm neither one nor( de facto) the other but I wouldn't mind being added to the list.
• 

  purplesofa

  Successful............sry.
• 

  PSacramento

  Well done.

  Medicine and science are wonderful aren't they?

  Thank God for higher education.
• 

  skeeter1

  I'm sure glad the Watchtower Society changed their stance on the heart/lung machine, and that this baby was born AFTER the old men in Bethel received New Light. For, a heart/lung machine was once not an option for a faithful Jehovah's Witness.

  Men of science are constantly developing new methods for performing surgical operations. The Journal of the American Medical Association, dated November 15, 1971, described a procedure for open-heart surgery that employs sever hemodilution. Early in the operation a large quantity of blood is drawn off into a plastic blood bag. Though the bag is left connected to the patient by a tube, the removed and stored blood is no longer circulating in the patient's system. It is replaced with a plasma volume expander, which dilutes the blood remaining in the veins and which gradually dissipates during the operative procedure. Near the conclusion of the operation the blood storage bag is elevated, and the stored blood is reinfused into the patient..... These techniques are noteworthy to Christians, since they run counter to God's Word. The Bible shows that blood is not to be taken out of a body, stored and then later reused.
  - Awake 4/8/72 29-30 Watching the World - Emphasis added.

  The news story is also a misleading. Now, Jehovah's Witnesses accept all blood products (aka fractions), made from thousands of units of donated, worldly people blood. If reconsittuted, the acceptable blood fractions would equal a whole unit of blood. Of course, this, like the heart/lung machine, is "new light."
• 

  aligot ripounsous

  So, Indian surgeons performed this tricky intervention, seems that Bengalore's fame as the Indian High tech capital city is not over rated. Kudos to the team, also for having respected the parents' stand, whatever we may think about the latter.
• 

  Mary

  No comments on this. But post one one death and every member of this board will jump at it!

  Doubtfully Yours, I'm sure you're not suggesting that anyone on this board is sorry that this baby survived a surgery that the doctors were able to perform without blood. On the contrary, it's wonderful to see stories where a JW survives surgery without a transfusion. Unfortunately, modern medicine is not at the point yet where we can dispense with blood transfusions and it's only common sense that until that day comes, a person should use a medical procedure that will save your life.

  I tell you, for every death due to lack of blood acceptance, which more than likely the person would have died anyway whether they took the blood or not

  What a typical, stupid rationalization from a brainwashed Witness that has no basis in fact (but since when did a little thing like 'facts' ever bother a Witness?). Tell me DY, do you REALLY believe that your theory applies to say, this poor young witness woman who died giving birth? There is absolutely NOTHING to support your ridiculous assertion that blood transfusions don't really save any lives. On the contrary, blood transfusions save on average 10,000 lives every day. My brother in law could have very well survived his cancer had he been allowed to accept blood transfusions as it is impossible to survive the disease he had without one. So please---before you come up with a cookie-cutter response that you heard from the platform, try looking into the statistics to see if there's actually any truth in what you're trying to promote.

  (like it happened to this person in our cong., that got weak and accepted the blood, then died a few days later anyway)

  'Got weak' eh? Not that this person was trying desperately to save his/her own life----they were simply 'weak'. Reminds me of what happened to an elderly brother that Ray Franz wrote about in ISOCF names George West from the Maynard Massachusetts congregation in 1982. George was dying of bone cancer and was deteriorating quickly:

  "his head was supported in a cage arrangement since his neck bones could no longer bear the weight. The elders [had somehow heard] that George had submitted to a blood transfusion and attempted to ask him about it on several occasions. One night under interrogation he acknowledged having accepted the transfusion. His reason? His children from a previous marriage had heard he was dying and called to let him know they were coming.....to visit him at the hospital. He had not seen them since childhood. He decided to take the transfusion to extend his life a little longer in order to be reunited with his children. The elders disfellowshipped George West only days before he died."------Printed in a letter to the editorial column of the Concord Monitor of December 8, 1984. No one from the Society could, or did refute them.

  Gee DY---I really hope your elder body got the chance to disfellowship the 'weak' person in your congregation before they died. Nothing like kicking someone when they're at death's door eh? Perhaps you need to re-introduce yourself to the flip side of the argument as to why the Society's ban on blood transfusions has no basis in scripture. Here is a link to a thread started a couple of years ago by Lady Liberty on the subject: http://www.jehovahs-witness.net/watchtower/bible/136144/1/Question-Why-was-it-ok-to-sell-unbled-meat-to-a-foriegner-for-them-to-eat

  A comparison of transfusion risks to the risks of dying from other common causes:

  • Serious disease or death from transfusion: 1 chance in 200,000 / year
  • Death from electrocution: 1 chance in 200,000 / year
  • Death from drowning: 1 chance in 35,000 / year
  • Death from a car accident: 1 chance in 7,000 / year
  • Death from pneumonia or influenza: 1 chance in 3,000 / year
  • Death from cancer: 1 chance in 500 / year
  • Death from stroke or heart disease: 1 chance in 300 / year
  • Source: Canadian Hemophilia Society
• 

  GLTirebiter

  It's wonderful that a skilled, resourceful team of "worldly", college-educated surgeons was able to give that child a chance at a normal, healthy life. That does not vindicate the WT viewpoint in any way; the boy was succesfully treated in spite of the organization's dangerous loyalty test.

  The doctors accepted a difficult case and pulled off what amounts to a miracle. Hats off to them!

  But I have only a big, loud Bronx cheer for cult leaders who gamble with children's lives.
• 

  thetrueone

  Bloodless surgery has been promoted in recent years not by the stance of the JWS and their policy

  but rather as a procedure to lessen the demand on short blood supplies, the very small chance of disease being

  transfered by transfusions and other complications. The JWS are not really apart of this new type of medical procedure.

  I'd like to know the reason why PURPLESOFA posted this thread.