http://www.indystar.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=2011105100365
Blood transfusions for wife continue despite man's protest
JEFFERSONVILLE, Ind. -- A Southern Indiana man says a hospital is giving his wife blood transfusions despite his religious objections.
Bruce Huff, Charlestown, said he shares the Jehovah's Witnesses' belief that receiving blood is a sin. Huff, 58, was baptized as a Jehovah's Witness but doesn't attend services regularly and doesn't consider himself a member.
His wife, Candy Huff, has been diagnosed with polypharmaceutical overdose, which means she was taking too many different types of medications. After his wife was rushed to Clark Memorial Hospital several weeks ago, Huff wrote a letter to the hospital, saying she shouldn't be given blood transfusions.
"I love Candy. I told them to do absolutely anything to save her life, except give her blood or blood products," Bruce Huff told the Evening News and Tribune.
The hospital petitioned a court to appoint someone else to make medical decisions for Candy Huff, saying Bruce Huff could not act in her best interest. The court appointed Candy Huff's aunt, and the transfusions continued, the paper said.
Bruce Huff said his religious beliefs prompted the hospital's action, but hospital attorney Pamela Thompson denied that.
"This situation was very, very unique," she said. "(Religion) was not the substance or basis of the petition."
Thompson said this was the first time in her five years representing the hospital that she asked a judge to intervene in a patient's care. She said it would have been preferable for Candy Huff to have designated someone to oversee her care.
"The hospital always tries to look at the facts and circumstances and look at the families, all of the patient's rights and all of the family's rights," Thompson said.