Where the Patient’s Wishes Are Respected

The following is a personal experience about a medical emergency. It does not constitute an endorsement by “Awake!” of any particular medical treatment or hospital facility.

WHEN dad had his stroke, there were complications. The blood thinner had apparently caused him to bleed internally. His hematocrit blood level dropped to a dangerous 17 (normal is 40). The family doctor in Palm Springs wanted to administer a blood transfusion. My family, for Bible-based reasons, desired some alternative treatment.

Dr. Herk Hutchins in the Los Angeles area was called. He, along with other medical personnel, had developed a blood-building formula of iron, vitamins and other ingredients. But since the doctors in Palm Springs were unfamiliar with it, and felt that it presented certain hazards, they were hesitant to use it.

At that point my brother, calling me in New York, explained: “Mom’s gotten an ambulance to take dad to another hospital in Yorba Linda. He’s very serious.”

That same Sunday afternoon, this past January 6, my wife and I were on a plane for California.

An Unsolved Mystery

The following morning we drove to the Esperanza Intercommunity Hospital in Yorba Linda. As test after test failed to show where dad was bleeding, the doctors expressed bewilderment. There was a lot of blood missing!

When dad was admitted to a Palm Springs hospital on December 31, a laboratory test showed his hematocrit level to be a normal 40. Thus, in the two or three days after the blood thinner heparin was given him, about half his blood had either leaked from his circulatory system or in some way broken down. Several doctors said they had never seen a patient lose that much blood without their knowing where it had gone.

Although the mystery of the missing blood was never solved, to us that wasn’t the important thing. More important was that dad stopped bleeding, and a remarkable reversal in his condition had occurred.

A Successful Blood Builder

Four days after reaching the Esperanza hospital the oxygen-carrying capacity of his blood had leaped 25 percent! He was responding to the special blood-building treatment. I cornered Dr. Hutchins to learn as much as I could about it.

Hutchins is a white-haired, 74-year-old man with 35 years of surgical experience. He is also one of Jehovah’s Witnesses. He expressed little surprise at father’s improvement. “It is about what we expect with this treatment,” he said. “We’ve successfully treated over 300 patients with it, many with lower blood levels than your father’s. And we haven’t had an adverse reaction yet.”

I had a copy of the blood-building formula that Hutchins had given over the phone to the nurse in Palm Springs. “Why may doctors be reluctant to follow this treatment?” I wanted to know.

“Not all of them are,” Hutchins responded. “I’ve had doctors with Witness patients call me from many parts of the United States. Some have been glad to learn of our treatment. For example, a physician called from San Bernardino, California, recently. He immediately began the treatment, and the following week called back to let me know that his patient had responded well.”

“Yet not all doctors would do that,” I offered. “The doctors treating my father were afraid to use the therapy on him.”

“Yes, I know,” Hutchins acknowledged. “Doctors, like other trained professionals, are understandably inclined to use methods or procedures with which they are familiar, ones that are generally accepted in their fields. For blood loss, doctors are trained to give blood transfusions. Comparatively little research has been done on a blood-building alternative.”

“But I understand that most doctors are very familiar with all the components of this treatment,” I noted.

“That’s true. However, we administer the principal component, the Imferon, in a way that until now has not been generally recommended. Blood-building Imferon (iron dextran) is almost always given intramuscularly, not in the veins. Patients with severe blood loss, however, need the immediate benefits that intravenous feeding provides. And, as I said, we haven’t had one adverse reaction to putting the iron directly into the veins.”

I found the above information enlightening, and was moved to make a further investigation of Imferon after returning to New York. Looking into medical literature, I discovered that there are indeed cautions regarding Imferon’s use. In fact, one doctor even told me that death has been associated with its intravenous administration, and commented: “Few doctors would feel free to proceed contrary to such an established opinion.”

I called Dr. Hutchins to ask him about his observations on what I had learned. “I know about the warnings on the use of Imferon,” he said. “But by diluting one part Imferon in 50 parts of normal saline solution and slowly dripping it into a patient’s bloodstream, along with other ingredients, we simply have not had any problems whatsoever. It is now just a routine treatment for us here.”

Hutchins asked: “What blood-building alternative is there in such a medical emergency?” Answering his own question, he said: “I don’t know of any, other than blood transfusion.”

Yet today there are millions of persons who respect God’s laws that prohibit the taking of blood. (Gen. 9:3-5; Lev. 17:14) These are Christians who abide by the spirit-inspired command: “Abstain . . . from blood.” (Acts 15:20, 28, 29) In a medical emergency, they may feel that they have little alternative to accepting the risks of the type of blood-building treatment that helped my father, should their doctor be willing to administer it.

Why They Had Come Here

I was amazed to discover that nearly half the patients at the Esperanza hospital were Jehovah’s Witnesses. They had come from many parts of the United States because they had learned, as had our family, that their wish to be treated without blood would be respected here. Often the circumstances of their treatment were dramatic.

Rusty Ross, a 23-year-old, was flown in from Salida, Colorado, in a Leer jet. He had a bleeding ulcer, and doctors in Colorado were afraid to operate without freedom to use blood if they felt it was necessary. A waiting ambulance at the Orange County airport rushed him to the hospital, where doctors began operating within an hour of his landing. He had nearly bled out, his hemoglobin blood count having dropped to 4 (normal is about 15). But he pulled through, recovered rapidly, and was released from the hospital while we were there with dad.

Dorothy Wayner, a 47-year-old housewife, from Phoenix, Arizona, was a similar case. An ulcerated colon landed her in a local hospital. As her blood count dropped dangerously, the doctors feared to operate without blood. By the time she was flown to California her blood count was around 4. It dropped below 3 after the operation. Few persons survive with that little blood, but she did. On January 17, while we were still at the hospital, she had recovered sufficiently to be released.

Medical Care

It seemed to me that patients were receiving fine medical care. One of the associate doctors at the facility is Ron Lapin, a dark-haired, athletic-looking 38-year-old native of Israel. He is not one of Jehovah’s Witnesses, but is in agreement with their Scriptural views on blood.

“I would never give blood to any patient,” Lapin explained. “I haven’t given a blood transfusion in over five years. Yet an examination of the more than 2,000 patients we have operated on in that time will, I believe, show that their survival and recovery rates are every bit as good, if not better, than patients who receive blood.”a

There are many doctors also in other places who are accepting and treating Jehovah’s Witnesses without blood. In cities around the country medical institutions in increasing numbers are doing so. It is now possible, for example, to find a doctor in New York city in many of the specialty fields who is agreeable to treating Jehovah’s Witnesses.

It also interested me to read about hip replacement surgery without blood done at the University of Arkansas Medical Center (Little Rock) by a group of surgeons headed by Dr. Carl L. Nelson. The article noted: “The group has operated on approximately 100 Jehovah’s Witnesses from nearly every state in the union, according to Dr. Nelson. ‘And I think you can fairly say that working with Jehovah’s Witnesses has been a benefit for everyone,’ he said.”​—The Journal of the American Medical Association, January 16, 1978.

Similarly, Professor Walter J. Pories, chairman of the Department of Surgery (East Carolina University, Greenville, North Carolina) wrote in a letter: “We treated many Jehovah’s Witnesses . . . and were universally impressed with the sincerity and cooperation of the members of your church, and frankly had better surgical results than with most other patients. We hope that you don’t need surgery, but if you do, we will be glad to serve you in accord to the precepts of your faith.”

Loving Patient Care

I was interested in the viewpoint of Vinod Malhotra, the cardiologist from India who treated my father. “Doctors should be servants of their patients, not force their own views on them,” he said. Malhotra’s kind, mild-tempered manner was in keeping with his attitude toward patient care. For example, he approved of my young nephews’ visiting their grandfather, and of us older family members sharing in around-the-clock care of him within the hospital. “When patients are seriously ill they need their loved ones the most,” he said. “Family members need to be able to touch and hold them, not be isolated behind some glass window.”

Dad finally was able to return home to Palm Springs January 24, and I flew back to New York. My wife stayed on for a couple of weeks to help further with his care and the rehabilitation of his paralyzed right side.

Our family is grateful that, in this emergency, we could find medical treatment, kindly administered with due respect for the patient’s wishes.

[Footnotes]

[Picture on page 19]

My father with Doctors Vinod Malhotra, Ron Lapin and Herk Hutchins who were in charge of his care