John MacDonald: I agree with baby blood decision

A crowd gathers at the Auckland High Court to support a Waikato couple who refuse to use vaccinated blood to be used for their baby's heart surgery. Photo / Alex Burton

OPINION

Can you imagine how it must feel to be the parents who were told by the High Court that decisions regarding their son’s life-saving heart surgery are now out of their hands?

This is the wee boy who needs urgent surgery because he has a condition where one of the valves in his heart isn’t working properly, which means pressure and blood could back up and put pressure on his heart.

These parents will be absolutely gutted. So too will the people who have supported them since this all became public knowledge just over a week ago.

This was when we learned that Health New Zealand was going to court because this wee boy’s parents didn’t want him to receive blood during the operation donated by people who have had the Covid-19 vaccination.

So there were the medical people who wanted the go-ahead from the parents. And there were the parents, saying they’d only give the go-ahead as long as any blood transfusions done as part of the surgical process didn’t involve blood from people vaccinated against Covid.

This sort of thing is not a complete first. There have been issues over blood transfusions between doctors and people who follow the Jehovah’s Witness faith.

But, as far as we know anyway, this is the first case of issues arising in relation to people receiving blood taken from others who have had the Covid vaccination.

You’ll remember that the parents weren’t refusing outright to give permission for the surgery to proceed, they just didn’t want their son to receive blood from vaccinated people.

And they had told the doctors that they had 20 unvaccinated people they could call on, who were all prepared to donate blood, but the health authorities weren’t up for that. And they felt they had no option but to get the courts to intervene to see if that would get things moving and enable the operation to go ahead.

That’s all happened and the judge has ruled in the favour of Health New Zealand - which means the Court now has guardianship of the 4-month-old and the operation will proceed.

This means any blood transfusions needed as part of the surgical process will be with blood donated through the New Zealand Blood Service - not the 20 non-vaccinated volunteers that the boy’s parents had said were ready and willing to donate.

When this all blew up just over a week ago, I was torn big time. I found it really easy to put myself in the parents’ position, not because I’m anti-vax or anything, and not because I’ve been through an experience anything like what they’re going through. Thankfully.

But who on earth would want to be forced into something being done to their child that they didn’t agree with?

This couple obviously have concerns about the Covid vaccine, whether it be based on science or ideology, who knows. And it’s being reported that medical people meeting with the parents were harangued by one of their supporters, who was trotting out the usual conspiracy theories. Which certainly won’t have done them any good, in terms of trying to get the medical people on their side.

But, when it came down to it, they could have all the conspiracy theories in the world but things were left to the High Court. And the court has ruled on the side of the medical professionals.

And, even though I’ve got a huge amount of compassion for the parents in this situation; and, even though I know that they will be devastated by the court’s decision, I agree with it.