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Auckland court: "Difficult situation for all involved"
Photo: Greg Bowker/Getty Images
The operation is vital, but the parents want to deny it to their child: The Supreme Court in New Zealand has taken temporary custody of a sick infant whose parents refused heart surgery for fear of corona vaccines in blood.
The Auckland court ordered emergency custody of six-month-old "Baby W" to make the surgery possible, according to nzherald.com.
"The primary question is whether the proposed treatment is in the best interests of the child," the court said.
The child is now under the medical guardianship of the court until the "completion of his operation" and his recovery by the end of January at the latest.
For all other matters, the parents remain entitled to custody.
In addition, they would be regularly informed about how the treatment is going and how the baby is doing, the judgment said.
The baby's parents had blocked the operation because they didn't want blood transfusions that might have come from a donor vaccinated with an mRNA vaccine.
Health authorities denied the parents' request for blood from an unvaccinated donor.
New Zealand's blood transfusion service makes no distinction between donations from those who have been vaccinated against the coronavirus or those who have not, as blood from those who have been vaccinated poses no additional risk.
New Zealand Health Authority spokesman Mike Shepherd said it was a "difficult situation for everyone involved".
The decision to submit such an application to the court is always made “with the best interests of the child in mind”.
The baby is being treated at Starship Children's Hospital in Auckland.
About 150 anti-vaccination protesters demonstrated outside the courthouse on Tuesday to support the baby's parents.
kha/AFP
