The Bordeaux University Hospital will have to pay several thousand euros to a Jehovah's Witness patient, for having had recourse to a blood transfusion against her consent during an operation in 2016, according to a judgment of the administrative court of appeal.
The patient, a member of Jehovah's Witnesses, who refuse blood transfusions for religious reasons, had received three transfusions between February 29 and March 2, 2016 during a " life-threatening
"
gallbladder removal.
, despite his refusal of the treatment pronounced on several occasions.
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The court ordered the Bordeaux University Hospital to pay the sum of 3,000 euros in compensation "
for its moral damage and the disturbances in its living conditions
" and 1,000 euros for a lack of information.
For the Court, "
the hospital did not commit a fault by carrying out the first two transfusions
" carried out while the patient was suffering internal bleeding, because "
respecting the patient's wishes put her life in danger
", indicates the court in a statement Thursday.
But the third transfusion, administered two days after the operation, “
after non-consensual sedation
”, is “
wrongful because the patient had regained consciousness and signified again her refusal to be transfused
”, adds the Court.
A movement founded in the 1870s in the United States by Charles Russell, Jehovah's Witnesses consider themselves to be the only ones to restore Christianity to its origins.
They are regularly accused of sectarian aberrations for their rigorous precepts.
