As a result, many patients that are to be given blood transfusions have to sign a release form. By signing this form the patient agrees to release the hospital and its personnel from any responsibility if there is damage from the blood. One such hospital form reads:

“I fully understand that the transfusion or administration of blood or blood derivatives to me may result in VIRAL HEPATITIS or other untoward reactions resulting in possible serious illness and complications, hospitalization, need for further medical care and treatment, temporary or permanent disability, as well as other possible adverse effects upon my health and well-being, (including death).”

In this form, a space is provided for parents or guardians to sign when the patient is a minor.

Is It Consistent?

It is certainly consistent with the patient’s rights to inform him of the dangers of blood transfusions. That is, if the patient wants blood. By signing the form he agrees to take blood at his own risk.

But what if he does NOT want blood? How consistent is it for doctors and hospitals to want forms signed freeing them from liability for giving blood, and yet in other cases want court orders so they can force blood on unwilling patients?

Also, the same inconsistency is shown when dealing with patients who are minors, children. On the one hand, parents or guardians are asked to sign forms freeing doctors and hospitals from responsibility if damage occurs to the child from a blood transfusion. Yet, on the other hand, parents or guardians have been ignored when they sign, or want to sign, forms freeing doctors and hospitals from liability for NOT giving the child a blood transfusion.

It is not enough to sign a statement freeing medical personnel from responsibility if anything should go wrong because of the patient’s not having taken blood. Such forms must include a guarantee by the medical personnel involved not to give blood under any circumstances. At the same time, such forms can express the willingness to take alternative treatment approved by the patient.

In another instance, Curtis Dunn and his wife Patsy, Jehovah’s witnesses, found how misleading signed forms can be. Expecting her third child, they signed a form releasing the doctors and the hospital from any liability for her not taking blood.

After the child was born it developed anemia. Physicians of a Houston, Texas, hospital took the infant away from the parents by a court order and gave it a blood transfusion. The action was taken suddenly. No allowance was made for a hearing of the matter first. But what had happened to the form they signed?

Closer scrutiny of the release form was revealing. The form stated only that it would release the physicians and the hospital from any responsibility for the parents’ decision. It did not say the parents’ decision would be honored under all circumstances. So such forms may be relatively valueless. They can be deceptive, lulling trusting patients into a false sense of security.