The master of the Coombe Women's Hospital has told the High Court it would have been "unacceptable" and "wrong" "to walk away" from a member of the Jehovah Witness congregation who had refused a blood transfusion considered necessary by the hospital to save her life.
Dr Chris Fitzpatrick said the woman required a blood transfusion in order to preserve her mortality after she had suffered a massive haemorrhage shortly after she gave birth to her son at the Dublin hospital on September 21st, 2006.
Dr Fitzpatrick was giving evidence in an action by the hospital against the woman in which the hospital contends it was entitled to seek an injunction allowing it to transfuse her.
The hospital secured the injunction after telling the court it believed the woman would die without a transfusion as she had lost some 80 per cent of her blood.
The woman, identified only as Ms K, is 24 years of age and from the Democratic Republic of Congo.
In the proceedings before Ms Justice Mary Laffoy, the hospital claims Ms K's constitutional rights to freedom of conscience and the free practice of religion do not extend to enabling her to decline appropriate medical treatment.
It further pleads that it would be contrary to public order and morality if Ms K could be permitted to place her life in immediate danger by declining routine medical treatment.
Ms K denies the claims. 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.
She also claims that the hospital committed assault and trespass on her person.
Cross-examined yesterday by John Rogers SC, for Ms K, Dr Fitzpatrick said a transfusion for Ms K after she had suffered a massive haemorrhage was not "an optional extra".
Other treatments were considered, but only as an adjunctive to transfusion, he said.
The only reason he was informed on September 21st, 2006 about Ms K's case was because she had refused to have the procedure because of her religious beliefs.
In this instance, there was "a critical need for a transfusion", he said.
Despite the fact that the hospital had a number of interactions with her, they had not been informed in advance that Ms K, a French speaker who required the help of a friend to translate, was a Jehovah Witness. Staff were only told that after she haemorrhaged.
In the hours after the transfusion was administered, Ms K had told him in English that she felt okay and did not regret getting the transfusion, he said. That surprised him and he wrote down her responses.
Dr Fitzpatrick denied that he wrote down the responses in order to justify getting the court order to allow Ms K be transfused.
He agreed with counsel that Ms K had refused a transfusion of blood on several occasions on the morning and afternoon of September 21st, 2006.
He agreed with counsel that Ms K was not irrational at the time but added that, given all the circumstances, the hospital had issues with the quality of her refusal to be given blood.
If the hospital had not secured the court order allowing it to transfuse Ms K, it would still have provided care to her, Dr Fitzpatrick added.
The hearing has been adjourned to October 23rd.