The master of the Coombe Women's Hospital has strongly rejected a female Jehovah's Witness's description of a blood transfusion administered to her at the hospital against her wishes after she suffered a massive haemorrhage as being "like a rape".
It would have been medically negligent not to give the transfusion, Dr Chris Fitzpatrick said.
He said the woman had given an "inaccurate representation" of what had happened to her after she experienced massive blood loss following the birth of her baby boy at the Coombe on September 21st, 2006. He was told the woman had said that, during the transfusion process, people were around her terrifying her, that she wanted to fight the medical staff off before the transfusion was given but was unable to, that she was held and sedated before the transfusion was administered, and had described the experience as like a rape.
Dr Fitzpatrick said he "found it difficult to reconcile" what had happened with that account of events. Staff at the hospital were "at pains" to support the woman during what was a difficult time for everybody concerned, he said.
He was giving evidence in the continuing action by the hospital against the woman in which the hospital contends it was entitled to seek an injunction in September 2006 to give the woman a transfusion. The hospital secured the order after it told the court it believed the woman would die without a transfusion as she had lost some 80 per cent of her blood and that the woman had refused the transfusion in light of her religious beliefs.
The woman may be identified only as Ms K. She is 24 years of age and from the Democratic Republic of Congo.
In a counter-claim, she contends the administration of the transfusion was a breach of her rights under the European Convention on Human Rights and that she was entitled to refuse such medical treatment. Ms K also claims that the hospital committed assault and trespass on her person.
Yesterday, Dr Fitzpatrick told Dr Gerard Hogan SC, for the hospital, that claims by Ms K that medical staff had been terrifying and fighting with her were not true.
Ms K, he said, had attended the hospital on several occasions and had never informed them she was a Jehovah's Witness. If an "appropriate and informed" refusal was given in advance by Ms K then the hospital would not have transfused her.
Cross-examined by John Rogers SC, for Ms K, Dr Fitzpatrick agreed that a formal evaluation of Ms K's capacity to make a decision involving a psychologist was not carried out.
An informal continuous evaluation was done, he said. Given the unprecedented situation that the hospital found itself in, he felt he had no option other than to go to the High Court to get an order that would allow the hospital to perform the blood transfusion.
The case continues.