The Importance Of Blood Transfusion In Health Care

Blood transfusions have become an integral and important component in the Health Care system and treatment plans. For some people, this one procedure can mean the difference between life and death. Jehovah’s Witness are a Christian religion that does not accept blood products. To do so means being excommunicated from the church, even when the transfusion was given while the patient was unconscious. This puts health care workers, specifically emergency department doctors, in a very tough position. The church has published alternatives to blood products, but the physician may still be left with the ethical dilemma of either allowing their patient to die, or going against their wishes and administering blood (Jehovah’s Witness, 2015). In 1945, …show more content…
Electrocautery is an extremely important aspect, as this halts further bleeding during incisions. A heart-lung machine can reduce the number of red blood cells lost when primed with a non-blood fluid. Cooling a patient can lessen his/her oxygen needs, resulting in a higher tolerance to low hemoglobin levels. There are many more precautionary steps that can be taken by a surgeon, and most of these are routinely carried out in order to reduce the likelihood of a patient to need a blood transfusion (Quality Alternatives, 2005). Even so, there are still moments when a patient enters a critical range and needs to have something done in order to save their life. Hypotensive anesthetics have been used to reduce blood loss during surgery as well as hemostatic agents to increase clotting. Figure 1 shows an overview of church sanctioned alternatives as well as those that aren’t accepted and those the church has deemed a personal decision among its …show more content…
Your duty is to your patient and their wishes. If they do not want blood products, we have a duty to ensure that wish is carried out, even if a physician steps in and asks you to anyway. The legal aspect of all of this could potentially put your license at risk as well, potentially even if you step aside. The other major issue is with patient confidentiality. Church elders want to keep the church clean, so they ask anyone who sees an indiscretion taking place to inform them immediately. Because of this stand point, nurses should take great care in ensuring procedures are not discussed in presence of visitors or other patients. Nurses should also talk with their patients in private and find out what information they can pass along to their family (Simpson,